He’s a tax evader and a flashy New York businessman who cheated on his wife, and Donald Trump just gave him a last-minute forgiveness.
Trump on Wednesday morning granted a total pardon to Al Pirro Jr., the ex-husband of one of Trump’s most loyal supporters in the media, Jeanine Pirro, Fox News presenter “Justice with Judge Jeanine”.
The pardon, announced less than 45 minutes before Joe Biden took office as president, appeared to be Trump’s last breath of executive clemency, which in the past two months has eagerly rewarded friends, sycophants and ordinary people who have fallen into conflict with the law.
Al Pirro did not immediately respond to a request for comment left in his office.
Less than 12 hours before Pirro’s pardon was revealed, the White House announced that Trump had pardoned 73 others and commuted the criminal sentences of 70 individuals.
Recipients of the pardon included a former chief of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Steve Bannon, who was accused last year of defrauding Trump supporters who wanted to finance a private effort to build a border wall with Mexico, and the bailiff of Republican funds Elliot Broidy, who pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered lobbyist for foreign interests trying to influence the Trump administration.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump has granted full forgiveness to Albert J. Pirro, Jr.,” Trump spokesman Judd Deere said in a one-line statement, which, unlike other executive leniency actions , did not mention Pirro’s crimes. or offer some kind of rationalization because he deserved forgiveness.
Al Pirro, a businessman and lawyer known for his elegant clothes and well-combed silver hair, was convicted in a trial in the New York federal court in 2000 for conspiracy and tax evasion in connection with the illegal deduction of $ 1.2 million in personal expenses. – discounts for your business.
Pirro was sentenced to 29 months in prison at the same time as his then wife Jeanine was a district attorney in Westchester County, New York, the county’s top police official.
Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, is currently the target of a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is looking, among other things, at how the company has evaluated real estate assets for tax and other purposes. As part of that investigation, the prosecutor’s office is trying to execute a grand jury subpoena for Trump’s tax returns from his longtime accountants. Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block this subpoena.
The New York Times reported last fall that Trump personally paid just $ 750 in federal income taxes in 2016, and paid the same amount in his first year as president. And the Times reported that he had not paid any income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years.
The newspaper noted that Trump for a decade struggled with the IRS over whether he claimed a tax refund of nearly $ 73 million after declaring huge losses.
In 2006, Jeanine Pirro, who was then running as a Republican for the New York attorney general, confirmed that she was being investigated by federal authorities for talking to Bernie Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, about ways to possibly secretly registering Al Pirro to determine if he was having an affair.
Recordings of conversations between Kerik and Pirro showed that she offered to place a tape recorder on Al Pirro’s boat.
“What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him f — her every night?” Pirro asked Kerik, according to the transcripts of his discussion, which were revealed by WNBC-TV at the time.
“What should I do? … I can go on the boat, I’ll put this shit on myself.
Kerik, according to the transcript, asked someone at a consulting firm then run by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani – Trump’s current personal lawyer – about purchasing a recording device.
Jeanine Pirro was never charged in the case. Nor did she become an attorney general, being demolished in 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 before, when he and Jeanine were still married.
Al Pirro had been hit by a paternity suit while serving his prison 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 granted Kerik a pardon.
Since then, Kerik has been seen in the company of his former chief Giuliani, while Giuliani traveled the United States promoting allegations, which have not been substantiated by significant evidence, that Trump was stolen from a victory in the presidential election for electoral fraud.
Jeanine Pirro herself promoted these false claims, which did not gain strength in dozens of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and supporters after Biden handily defeated him both in the popular vote and in the Electoral College contest.
“Stop letting people say that we don’t have the evidence, because we do. And it will only continue,” she said during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program.
“This fraud will continue and America will be condemned for the next 20 years,” said Jeanine Pirro.