Trump worshiper Jeanine Pirro is very upset that her favorite p***y grabber was convicted of 34 felonies today.

After Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 charges in his New York criminal trial late this afternoon, Fox wasted no time attacking the verdict and the trial. Since the verdict came just after 5 PM ET, during the hour normally reserved for The Five, I wondered which of the five hosts would be first to slam the verdict. The “winner” was former Judge Jeanine Pirro. As we've previously reported, Pirro has a long relationship with Trump. Her ex-husband was on retainer to him. That presumably ended when the ex, allegedly connected to the mob, went to jail for tax fraud. Pirro got Trump to pardon him just before leaving office.

PIRRO: [I]n their gut, [Americans] realize that there is something that is very wrong here. We have gone over a cliff in America. This verdict is a verdict of someone who was forced to fight a 1000-pound gorilla with both hands tied behind his back. This was a defendant for whom crimes were created against, whom a judge was picked out of the ordinary, not from the drum but a judge who was hand-picked for this defendant, who denied him the ability to fight the way he needed to fight. Who brought in crimes that we've never heard of in New York before. Where they had dead misdemeanors that they resurrected into felonies, based upon non-unanimous verdicts of crimes that are federal over which no state court or no state judge or prosecutor has jurisdiction."

FACT CHECK: It’s not clear what Pirro was referring to when she claimed the judge was “hand-picked for this defendant.” But one of Trump’s own lawyers said last year he had “no issue … whatsoever” with Judge Juan Merchan.

Also, it is a Fox News and right-wing falsehood that the verdict did not have to be unanimous. As PolitiFact explained in a post debunking this misinformation, Judge Merchan instructed the jurors that in order to render a guilty verdict, they must agree unanimously that Trump falsified business records and that he did so intending to commit a separate crime. They did not have to agree unanimously on what that separate crime was. Furthermore, this is not unusual and very standard, according to PolitiFact’s expert, New York lawyer Duncan P. Levin. You'd think a former New York judge would know that or not lie about it.

However, Shannon Bream, the Fox anchor interviewing Pirro, who is also a lawyer, did not correct Pirro. So, she continued ranting:

PIRRO: A hooker and a guy who, according to a federal judge is a serial perjurer, we have convicted a former president of the United States of America. We've gone over a cliff."

FACT CHECK: Stormy Daniels is an adult film actor and director, not a hooker. As The Washington Post reported, the case mostly rested on documents, not Daniels or "perjurer" Michael Cohen. Prosecutors repeatedly told jurors not to rely on Cohen's testimony but on the paper trail, WaPo noted. “At the heart of the prosecution’s case against Trump were 34 documents: 11 invoices, 12 vouchers and 11 checks. Each of these documents accounted for one of the charges on which Trump was found guilty.”

Bream did not point that out, either. So, Pirro continued ranting. After calling the case “riddled with errors” and predicting an eventual reversal that will take at least a year, she continued the Fox News attacks on the judge:

PIRRO: I've spent 32 years in this system, and I am totally disillusioned. You had a judge and you had a DA who literally campaigned on making sure that this president would be indicted. We've got an attorney general who did the same thing. … It goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system.

Never mind that Pirro’s beloved Trump has repeatedly threatened to sic his FBI or DOJ to go after Joe Biden, senators, judges, members of Biden’s family and even non-governmental organizations. 

Bream said nothing about that, either.

You can watch Pirro lash out below, from the May 30, 2024 The Five.

(Note from Ellen: I added several fact checks, Bream's lack of challenge and some of the context about Pirro.)