In Jeanine Pirro’s own words, her job at Fox News was to push President Donald Trump’s narrative — no matter the cost.
A trove of newly unredacted court documents, first reported by The Washington Post, reveals the lengths Pirro, now the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, went to in order to bolster Trump’s election claims while she was still one of the Fox’s most prominent hosts.
“It’s Jeanine P. Got a former CIA chief of station who knows [about] development of Dominion,” Pirro texted Trump attorney Sidney Powell on Nov. 10, 2020, referring to the voting technology company falsely accused by Fox hosts of rigging the election.
“Keep fighting,” the former Justice with Judge Jeanine host added.
Fox would go on to settle a defamation lawsuit with Dominion for a staggering $787.5 million in 2023.
Pirro, 74, pushed Trump’s election conspiracy theories so aggressively on-air that she was warned by her own producer to dial it back, according to the documents.
“You should be very careful with this stuff and protect yourself given the ongoing calls for evidence [about the election being stolen] that has not materialized,” producer Jerry Andrews wrote in a text message to Pirro.
Amid internal concerns about her claims of election fraud, an episode of Justice with Judge Jeanine was pulled from the air, the Post reported. Pirro didn’t let it go quietly. In a message to Fox host Sean Hannity, she fumed: “I’M TIRED OF THE CENSORSHIP AND I’M EMBARRASSED BY HOW THEY CALLED THIS ELECTION.”
In another message, sent in September 2020, Pirro boasted to then-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel: “I work so hard for the party across the country. I’m the Number 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and party,” the Post reported.
The messages sent by Washington’s top prosecutor were made public as part of a separate $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox—this one filed by voting technology firm Smartmatic.
In court filings, Smartmatic alleges Pirro and other hosts were not only amplifying Trump’s election lies for personal gain but also violating Fox’s policies around political involvement. The company further claims Pirro, a longtime Trump ally, was attempting to secure a presidential pardon for her ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who had been convicted of tax evasion and conspiracy. Trump ultimately pardoned him on the final day of his presidency.
Fox, which sought dismissal from the suit earlier this year, has denied defamation and argued its hosts were covering—not endorsing—Trump’s election claims. Pirro was dismissed from the lawsuit in 2021, and later acknowledged in a deposition that the 2020 election was “fair and free” and that Joe Biden was legitimately elected.
Still, Smartmatic has included Pirro’s internal communications in its filings to argue that Fox personalities were motivated by loyalty to Trump — not journalism.
In a statement to the Daily Beast on Tuesday night, Fox News said of the lawsuit, “The evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on FOX News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech.”
”Now, in the aftermath of Smartmatic’s executives getting indicted for bribery charges, we are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms.”
Pirro’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The post Fox News Star’s Crazed 2020 Election Denial Revealed appeared first on The Daily Beast.
