Biography

Jeanine Ferris Pirro (born June 2, 1951) is an American television host and author, and is also a former judge, prosecutor, and politician in the state of New York.

Pirro was elected as a judge of the Westchester County (N.Y.) Court in 1990. In 1993, she was elected to the position of Westchester County district attorney. She is the first woman to be elected to either of those positions. As district attorney, Pirro gained visibility in cases of domestic abuse and crimes against the elderly. Pirro was re-elected district attorney in 1997 and 2001. Pirro briefly sought the Republican nomination for United States Senate to run against Hillary Clinton in 2006, but dropped out to accept the nomination for New York Attorney General; she lost the general election to Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

From 2008 to 2011, Pirro hosted a weekday television show entitled Judge Jeanine Pirro on The CW. From 2011 to 2022, she hosted Justice with Judge Jeanine on Fox News Channel. Pirro has authored six books, including Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy (2018). Following the 2020 presidential election, Pirro made false claims of voting machine fraud. In 2022, Pirro became a co-host of The Five. She has been a frequent contributor to NBC News, including regular appearances on The Today Show.

Pirro was named as a defendant in a February 2021 defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic. Pirro was among the hosts named in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network defamation lawsuit for broadcasting false statements about the plaintiff company's voting machines. Fox News settled the case for $787.5 million and was required to acknowledge that the broadcast statements were false.