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[/news/fox-news/index.html Fox News] star Jeanine Pirro lobbied [/news/donald_trump/index.html Donald Trump] on his last morning in office to pardon her fraudster ex-husband, it was reported Thursday.
[ ] that the host was in touch with the president after her ex-husband Albert Pirro - a lawyer who had once represented Trump - was missing from the dozens of pardons issued in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Among those who received clemency were Steve Bannon, Trump's former adviser who was indicted on charges of taking $1m from the privately-funded border wall campaign for his own use.
Albert Pirro had been among those expected to be on the list issued in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
But when he was not, his ex-wife lobbied Trump directly, CNN reported.
He ordered aides to their 'total surprise' to have Pirro pardoned, which left them 'scrambling.'
Ally: Jeanine Pirro has been a vocal defender of Donald Trump, who promoted her book in the Oval Office
President Donald Trump gave a last-minute pardon to Albert Pirro (left) who was previously married to Fox News personality Judge Jeanine Pirro (right).
Here the couple is captured leaving court in 2000
Close: Trump's relationship with Jeanine Pirro and her former husband goes back decades.
Albert Pirro represented Trump in the 1990s
The outgoing deputy press secretary, Judd Deere, announced the pardon when Air Force One touched down in Florida saying: 'Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a full pardon to Albert J.
Pirro, Jr.'
Pirro spent 17 months in federal prison after being convicted in 2000 of $1m in tax fraud. During the trial, his wife claimed prosecutors were out to get her. Among other things, he had claimed a tax deduction on his Ferrari and her Mercedes.
The Pirros divorced in 2007 after a public scandal exploded the previous year, at a time when she was running for New York's Senate seat as a Republican.
She admitted that she was under federal investigation for discussing illegal wiretapping with Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani's former NYPD commissioner - with the wiretap of her husband's boat where she believed he was cheating on her.
'What am I supposed to do, Bernie?
Watch him f*** her every night?' a transcript of their conversation with Kerik, who at the time was running a private security firm, showed. Her husband had cheated on her before, fathering a love child in the 1980s.
'What am I supposed to do?
I can go on the boat, I'll put the f***ing thing on myself.'
The FBI stumbled over their discussion while wiretapping Kerik, who was later convicted himself of tax fraud and lying to federal authorities and spent three and a half years in prison.
He was pardoned by Trump last February and played a part in the failed bid to overturn the election results, turning up with Giuliani at the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference.
The scandal derailed Pirro's political career - although she called it a 'witchhunt' and a year later she divorced Albert.
Albert Pirro - who had represented Trump in litigation in the 1990s -[ ]that the pardon was a 'surprise.' He said he did not believe his wife played any part and that he had no 'big shot' character witnesses.
'I'm in shock.
I went to bed last night having read the list assuming I wasn't getting a pardon,' Pirro told The Daily Beast.
'It certainly is a nice act on the part of the president. It has been 20 years since I served my time and it allows me to engage again in public companies, which I haven't been able to do previously.'
'Judge' Jeanine became one of Trump's most vocal defenders at Fox News.
She was a guest at Mar-a-Lago and Trump posed with her book in the Oval Office, while she robustly defended him on her 9pm Saturday slot - so much so that when she appeared to be taken off air in 2019 after questioning Muslim Democratic Rep.
Ilhan Omar's love for America, he tweeted: 'Bring back Judge Jeanine.'
Albert Pirro was the last name on the pardon list, but the most high-profile part of the clemency spree being a pardon for his former political aide Steve Bannon.
Bannon, 67, helped Trump win the election in 2016 and was a senior White House adviser.
In August last year he pleaded not guilty to charges that he defrauded MAGA donors to 'We Build the Wall,' an online campaign that raised $25 million.
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President Donald Trump was landing in West Palm Beach, Florida when the pardon was revealed
Jeanine Pirro (left), then the GOP's state attorney general candidate, seen air-kissing her then-husband Albert Pirro (right).
They divorced in 2008
Pardoning Bannon in a list that dropped shortly after midnight the White House said: 'President Trump granted a full pardon to Stephen Bannon. Prosecutors pursued Mr. Bannon with charges related to fraud stemming from his involvement in a political project. Should you cherished this information and you desire to be given more info concerning DON'T CRY (more about G) kindly pay a visit to the web-page.
'Mr.
Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen.'
Trump also pardoned rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black who were prosecuted on federal weapons offenses, as well as former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was serving a 28-year prison term on corruption charges.
He pardoned Elliott Broidy, a former top fundraiser for Trump who pleaded guilty last year to violating foreign lobbying laws, Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner who was charged last October with cyberstalking during a heated divorce and Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing the internet giant's self-driving car files ahead of joining Uber.
But notable names not on the list were Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Tiger King's Joe Exotic, Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani or any members of the Trump family, all of whom were rumored to be under consideration.
It also ended years of speculation that Trump would try to immunize himself, an unprecedented and legally questionable step which he had previously claimed he had the power to take.
The list was issued just hours before Trump leaves the White House for the last time and the pardon power, nuclear codes and other trappings of the presidency are transferred to Joe Biden, who will take the oath of office at noon Eastern time.
Leaving under the cloud of a second impeachment and the riot he provoked at the Capitol two weeks ago, Trump wished luck to the new administration in a 'farewell address' last night but did not mention Biden by name and still has not accepted in public that he legitimately lost the election.
Donald Trump has pardoned Steve Bannon. The former White House Chief Strategist, center, exits the Manhattan Federal Court on August 20 last year after he was accused of defrauding donors in a $25 million border wall fundraising campaign
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news floatRHS" data-version="2" id="mol-b3bac7e0-5b3c-11eb-9baf-d990deea6dc3" website Jeanine lobbied Trump on Wednesday to pardon ex-husband