Jeanine Pirro may have divorced her criminal, cheating, suspected mobbed-up ex-husband but she reportedly did him a solid by persuading Donald Trump to grant Albert Pirro a last-minute pardon.

CNN reports that Pirro “successfully lobbied former President Donald Trump in an eleventh-hour effort to pardon her ex-husband in the final hours” of the Trump administration. She was “upset” Albert Pirro “wasn’t on Trump’s final pardon list” and she “conveyed” that message to the White House, “according to a former White House advisor.” Aides were told mid-morning “it needed to be done.” “The order came as a total surprise and had aides scrambling” to beat the noon inauguration of Joe Biden as president, according to CNN.

Albert and Jeanine Pirro have quite the – uh, interesting history. First, there’s this, from a May, 2018 post:

[Jeanine Pirro] was married for 32 years to a lawyer with alleged mob ties, who went to jail for tax fraud and who fathered an illegitimate daughter. She also came under federal investigation for allegedly planning to bug her husband’s boat [with Bernie Kerik, previously pardoned by Trump) to see if [he] was cheating on her. It just so happens that same (now former) husband was kept on retainer by Trump. It’s not clear if that ended after the jail sentence.

Then this, from a June, 2018 post:

One other detail: Pirro’s then-husband, Al Pirro, was convicted of 34 counts of tax evasion and conspiracy and it’s hard to believe she did not know what he was up to. From a New York Magazine article written before Pirro’s [2000] conviction:

The Feds say [Al] Pirro hid $1 million in income between 1988 and 1997, claiming dozens of personal luxuries as business expenses, from his $123,000 Ferrari to his wife’s Mercedes-Benz.

Though federal tax law allows spouses to claim ignorance of their other half’s business dealings, Al’s list of exemptions raises real concerns—at least about Jeanine’s lack of curiosity.

[…]

Though she co-signed several of the couple’s joint tax returns (she earns $136,700 a year as D.A.), she has offered no explanations. Not about the Mercedes, which she drives each day past the $40,000 electronic gates of her $1.7 million Harrison home—gates Al claimed as a business deduction—or about the deductions of a $3,700 backyard awning; $10,000 in furnishings for a West Palm Beach vacation home; another Mercedes, for Jeanine’s mother; cruise tickets; stereos; fine wines; cigars; toys; and even salaries for workers who baby-sat the Pirro children, picked up the dry cleaning, and took the family’s pot-bellied pigs to the vet.

The Daily Beast reported that Albert Pirro was surprised to be pardoned and did not believe his ex-wife played a role:

“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.”

…

“It’s a very nice surprise. I have a long association with the Trump organization as I represented them before my conviction,” Albert Pirro said. “I served my time. I paid my debt. I plan to make a contribution back to society. It has been a humbling experience, and I’m very grateful to Donald Trump.”

(Pirro image via screen grab)