President Donald Trump slammed Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano on Saturday night, accusing the former judge of getting angry when the commander in chief refused to nominate him to the Supreme Court. Trump also claimed that he rejected a request to pardon one of Napolitano’s friends.
In a pair of tweets after his campaign rally in Wisconsin, Trump said that Napoitano had become “very hostile” toward his administration after he rejected his requests. “Ever since Andrew came to my office to ask that I appoint him to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I said NO, he has been very hostile! Also asked for pardon for his friend. A good ‘pal’ of low ratings Shepard Smith,” the president said, referring to another member of Fox News who has been more critical of Trump.
Trump is, of course, a big fan of Fox News and often praises the network’s journalists and commentators. But Napolitano has recently spoken up quite a bit against Trump, particularly after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report. “I am disappointed in the behavior of the president,” Napolitano said earlier this week. “If he had ordered his aides to violate federal law to save a human life or to preserve human freedom, he would at least have a moral defense to his behavior,” he added. “But ordering them to break federal law to save him from the consequences of his own behavior, that is immoral, that is criminal, that is defenseless, that is condemnable.” He also published a scathing op-ed earlier this week that said Mueller “laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump.”
Before this recent turn, Trump and Napolitano seemed quite fond of each other. Trump even quoted Napolitano in his tweets several times during his presidency and referred to him as a “very talented legal mind” during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
