Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether Jeanine F. Pirro, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, and Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, illegally taped conversations of Ms. Pirro's husband last year to determine if he was having an affair.
At a hastily arranged news conference yesterday, called because of an imminent television report on the inquiry, Ms. Pirro conceded that she had her husband, Albert, followed in the summer of 2005. She said she had discussed bugging the family's boat with Mr. Kerik, an old friend who was then running his own security business. But Ms. Pirro, who was the district attorney of Westchester County at the time, said she never went through with the plan, and she insisted that she broke no laws.
Seething with anger, and choking up as she laid bare her marital problems, Ms. Pirro said that two federal agents approached her at her home late one recent night and revealed that the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of New York was investigating her surveillance discussions. They had been caught on tape by Bronx authorities who were conducting a separate investigation of Mr. Kerik.
With less than six weeks to go until the Nov. 7 election, Ms. Pirro said she was being hounded by authorities as part of a ''political witch hunt and smear campaign'' led by the same federal lawyer who helped convict Mr. Pirro of tax evasion in 2000. But the United States attorney for the Southern District, Michael J. Garcia, a Republican appointee, issued a statement denying that the inquiry was politically motivated.
Ms. Pirro said she would remain in the race against the Democratic nominee, Andrew M. Cuomo, although top Republican leaders appeared torn over her fate yesterday, and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani canceled a fund-raiser for her next month. A telegenic politician who has often appeared as a commentator on legal matters, she has been considered a potential future leader of the party and perhaps a candidate for governor. Republican leaders had considered Ms. Pirro's bid to replace Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as the party's best hope of capturing a statewide office.
At her news conference, Ms. Pirro acknowledged that she was angry with Mr. Pirro, who fathered a child in an extramarital affair in the 1980's, and with whom Ms. Pirro has two children. But she said she was guilty only of the anger of a woman scorned. And she also said her political fate should be a matter of a concern to women.
''There is no way -- when I have the opportunity to be the first woman attorney general in the history of this state -- that I am going to be pushed out of this race because somebody wants to delve into the personal lives of my husband and myself,'' she said. ''I'm standing up for myself and I'm standing up for women.''
Nice try, Jeanine.
Anyone good at digging things up should try to look into Andrew Cuomo's involvement with the Wed Tech scandal. It also involved the head of either the NG or Army Res in NY at the time. The name Ehrlich or Erlich comes to mind. I don't remember the details, but do remember that as soon as Andy's name came up, everything got reeeeaaally quiet.
Her husband made headlines for other things too. She's put up with a lot from him.