How good is it to be a Fox News host? The pay seems nice. It comes with a certain sort of fame, too, particularly if you lack scruples about doing PR for Our Dear Leader. Increasingly, it also appears to be one of the most reliable stairways to the stability and prestige that comes with select public-sector jobs.
Trump’s affinity for hiring Fox News pundits is well-documented. So maybe it’s no surprise that Jeanine Pirro, one of Trump’s staunchest media defenders, has reportedly talked up her own prospects for an administration job—and not just any job. She apparently has her eye on the attorney general’s office.
From Politico:
A former prosecutor and judge, Pirro has repeatedly told Trump’s aides and advisers over the past 18 months that she’s interested in taking over as the nation’s top law enforcement official, according to four people familiar with the conversations.
Trump has dangled the possibility of giving her a top appointment. During a November meeting in the Oval Office, the president raised the possibility of nominating Pirro to a federal judgeship, according to a former administration official, though this person added that Trump was more likely engaging in flattery than seriously considering putting Pirro on the bench.
Politico’s sources at the White House and Fox News were unresponsive. (I have reached out to Fox News as well and will update if I hear back.) But would it be that shocking? Pirro has been in Trump’s orbit for decades. Trump called her “sexy as hell” in a 1999 New York magazine profile, which also reported that he kept Pirro’s then-husband—real estate attorney Albert Pirro—on retainer. Pirro’s career arc, from prosecutor to judge to insane TV personality, tracks closely with Trump’s. And she has used her weekly platform on Fox to do Trump’s bidding: attack James Comey; describe the FBI as a crime family; advocate for a “cleansing” of the Department of Justice; call Attorney General Jeff Sessions “the most dangerous man in America”; portray Trump as a genius; yuck it up with Rudy Giuliani; rail against the “Deep State”; and, of course, scold Michelle Obama, among other things.
According to New York Times Trump whisperer Maggie Haberman, Pirro’s talk about a new gig even materialized into an interview to be Sessions’ deputy:
Wouldn’t want a Supreme Court nomination doled out on a whim!
Anyway, stranger things than Attorney General or Justice Pirro have happened. This is where we are now.