He’s a tax evader and flashy New York businessman who cheated on his wife, and Donald Trump pardoned him just at the last minute.
Trump granted a full pardon on Wednesday morning to Al Pirro Jr., the ex-husband of one of Trump’s most slavishly loyal media supporters, Jeanine Pirro, presenter of Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”
The pardon, announced less than 45 minutes before Joe Biden was sworn in as president, seemed like Trump’s last breath of leniency from the executive branch, eagerly rewarding friends, sycophants and commoners who fell in violation of the law over the past two months. .
Al Pirro did not immediately respond to a request for comment left in his office.
Less than 12 hours before the Pirro pardon was revealed, the White House announced that Trump had pardoned 73 other people and commuted the criminal sentences of 70 people.
Recipients of pardons included a former head of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Steve Bannon, who was charged last year with defrauding Trump supporters who wanted to fund a private effort to build a border wall with Mexico, and the Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy, who pleaded guilty to acting. as an unregistered lobbyist for foreign interests seeking to influence the Trump administration.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a full pardon to Albert J. Pirro, Jr.,” Trump spokesman Judd Deere said in a one-line statement, which unlike other executive leniency actions made no mention of Pirro’s crimes, or offer some sort of rationalization as to why he deserved a pardon.
Al Pirro, a businessman and attorney known for his sharp clothing and well-cut silver mane of hair, was convicted in 2000 in a trial in federal court of New York for conspiracy and tax evasion in connection with the illegal deduction of $ 1. 2 million in personal expenses. -offs for his business.
Pirro was sentenced to 29 months in prison at the same time that his then-wife Jeanine was the district attorney of Westchester County, New York, the most senior state-level law enforcement officer in the county.
Trump’s company, the Trump organization, is currently the target of a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which, among other things, looks at how the company valued real estate for tax and other purposes. As part of that investigation, the district attorney’s office is seeking to enforce a grand jury subpoena for Trump’s income tax return from his old accountants. Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block that subpoena.
The New York Times reported last fall that Trump personally paid just $ 750 in federal income tax in 2016, paying the same amount for his freshman year as president. And the Times reported that he had not paid any income tax at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.
The paper noted that Trump has been fighting with the IRS for a decade over whether he was right to claim a tax refund of nearly $ 73 million after declaring large losses.
In 2006, Jeanine Pirro, who at the time was serving as a Republican for the Attorney General of New York, confirmed an investigation into her by federal authorities for talking to Bernie Kerik, a former New York City Police Commissioner, about ways to possibly secretly recording Al Pirro to determine if he was having an affair.
Recordings of conversations between Kerik and Pirro showed that she offered to place a recording device on Al Pirro’s boat.
‘What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him fuck her every night? ‘ Pirro asked Kerik, according to transcripts of their discussion, which were revealed by WNBC-TV at the time.
‘What should I do? … I can get on the boat, I do the thing on myself.
Kerik then, according to the transcript, asked someone at a consulting firm that was then headed by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – Trump’s current personal attorney – about purchasing a recording device.
Jeanine Pirro was never charged in the case. She also did not become an attorney general and was demolished during the election by Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York.
The following year, she announced her divorce from Al Pirro, who had a child with another woman decades earlier, when he and Jeanine were still married.
Al Pirro had been hit with a paternity case while serving his sentence for the tax case.
In 2009, Kerik himself pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying to the government. He was released from prison in 2013.
Last February, Trump pardoned Kerik.
Kerik has since been seen in the company of his former boss Giuliani, while Giuliani traveled across the United States to promote claims, unsubstantiated with significant evidence, that Trump was defrauded of a presidential election victory through widespread ballot fraud.
Jeanine Pirro herself promoted those bogus claims, which failed to gain traction in dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump’s campaign and supporters after Biden handily defeated him in both the popular election and the Electoral College election.
“Don’t let people tell you we don’t have the evidence anymore, because we do. And this is only going on, ” she said during a performance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.
“This fraud will continue and America will be doomed for the next 20 years,” said Jeanine Pirro.