Text messages sent in 2020 by Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host and new top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., show her bragging about helping President Trump ahead of the election and blasting Fox colleague Sean Hannity.
“I work so hard for the party across the country. … I’m the # 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and party,” Pirro texted the then-head of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, in September 2020.
The text messages, which were first reported by The Washington Post, were unredacted and submitted in court by voting systems company Smartmatic as part of its ongoing litigation against the network over its coverage of the 2020 election.
In another text message, sent in October of that year, Pirro wrote about an Oval Office meeting with Trump and complained about Hannity.
“Sean [Hannity] is an egomaniac. I was in the Oval with Hariri talking to POTUS,” she wrote. “He storms in like he owns the place, throws his papers on the Pres desk and says, you don’t mind if I use your private bathroom, and walks into bathroom within Oval and uses it. Looks at me and says, I got to talk to him. Ie, you go. It’s all abt him, period. No one else matters.”
Pirro, a firebrand political commentator and close ally of the president, left Fox earlier this year when Trump tapped her to serve as U.S. attorney in Washington. She has vowed to help the president crack down on crime in the District and blasted community activists and Democrats who have pushed back on the president’s anti-crime efforts.
Pirro is among the Fox hosts who Smartmatic has alleged in court documents knowingly promoted Trump’s false claims about voter fraud and defamed the company with criticism of its software, which the president and his allies were pushing.
Fox has countered in legal filings and public statements that it was merely covering newsworthy allegations of an improper election being pushed by the president and his allies, and has argued Smartmatic is inflating its valuation.
The network has also highlighted allegations of bribery and money laundering that executives at Smartmatic has faced in recent months.
“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,” the network said in a statement to The Hill. “Now, in the aftermath of Smartmatic’s executives getting indicted for bribery charges, we are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms.”
A trial in the Fox-Smartmatic case is not expected for months.
The Hill has reached out to Pirro’s office for comment.
