Newly released documents show that when she was a Fox News host, Jeanine Pirro – who is now the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia — bragged behind the scenes about helping President Donald Trump to then-Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel. But one legal expert is pointing out one key detail that has so far been under-reported.
"I worked so hard for the party across the country. I'm the number one-watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the president and party," Pirro told McDaniel in one September 2020 message revealed as part of voting machine company Smartmatic's lawsuit against Fox News.
In a Wednesday interview with MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, former Department of Justice prosecutor Mary McCord, who worked out of the District of Columbia office, pointed out that Pirro's messages may have had a self-serving element to them outside of her political views. And McCord observed that her efforts seem to have paid off.
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"Obviously, this is going to be very important to Smartmatic's case, but it should be important to all of us. And I want to come back to Jeanine Pirro, because ... it looks very much like one of the main reasons she was doing this was to try to be able to seek a pardon for her husband from Donald Trump — a pardon that he eventually did provide at the very end of his administration," McCord told Wallace. "And that looks very much like some type of a quid pro quo."
"Nothing we're seeing in there would would support an outright bribery charge because that has to be very knowing and explicit," she continued. "But it certainly seems like that is what her intent was. And to think that she is now the person making prosecutorial decisions in the District of Columbia is pretty frightening."
As McCord mentioned, Pirro's husband, Albert, got a last-minute pardon from Trump on January 20, 2021 – the day former President Joe Biden was inaugurated – as part of approximately 140 pardons Trump issued on the final day of his first term. Albert Pirro was convicted in 2000 on federal charges of conspiracy and tax evasion. That pardon was issued roughly four months after Pirro's message to McDaniel.
Watch the video of McCord's remarks below, or by clicking this link.
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