Attorney General Bill Barr Told Rupert Murdoch to 'Muzzle' Judge Napolitano

Judge Napolitano

The attorney general, William Barr, told Rupert Murdoch to “muzzle” Andrew Napolitano, who became a severe critic on Fox News of Donald Trump, according to a new book by CNN's Brian Stelter, reports The Guardian.

Barr’s meeting with Murdoch, at the media mogul’s New York home in October 2019, was widely reported at the time, with speculation surrounding its subject. According to Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, by CNN media reporter Stelter, subjects covered included media consolidation and criminal justice reform.


“But it was also about Judge Andrew Napolitano.”

Citing an unnamed source, Stelter writes that Trump “was so incensed by the judge’s TV broadcasts that he had implored Barr to send Rupert a message in person … about ‘muzzling the judge’. [Trump] wanted the nation’s top law enforcement official to convey just how atrocious Napolitano’s legal analysis had been.”

The Guardian goes on:

Though Barr’s words to Murdoch “carried a lot of weight”, Stelter writes, “no one was explicitly told to take Napolitano off the air”. Instead, Stelter reports, Napolitano found digital resources allocated elsewhere, saw a slot on a daytime show disappear, and was not included in coverage of the impeachment process.

In Stelter’s telling, Napolitano thought he was being kept off air by “25-year-old producers” who didn’t think viewers could handle his analysis. Stelter, however, says an unnamed “twentysomething staffer” confirmed that one host, Maria Bartiromo, would only book Napolitano to discuss non-Trump topics, because he would upset Bartiromo too much if he criticised the president.

You have to be careful about Stelter reporting because he is a hardcore member of the anti-Trump team but his reporting here has the ring of truth.

Napolitano had been doing some aggressive, almost bizarre, anti-Trump commentary, so much so that some people were wondering what kind of information some had on Napolitano to pressure him to go anti-Trump.

-RW