Politics
Longtime Fox News Personality Under Fire After Ripping Trump For Arresting Judge
A longtime personality on Fox News is coming under fire after rebuking Trump officials for arresting a Wisconsin judge charged with aiding an illegal immigrant criminal in his attempt to escape from apprehension outside a courthouse last week.
Former judge Andrew Napolitano said authorities with the FBI overreached when they arrested Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly obstructing a federal investigation by directing an illegal immigrant out of her courtroom and through a private area where he exited the building. FBI agents waiting for the individual to appear in a public hallway instead had to follow him down the street in a short foot chase before arresting him.
The arrest of Dugan has been promoted by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, who posted on social media the following day a picture of Dugan in handcuffs with the caption, “No one is above the law.”
To Napolitano, who served in the New Jersey Superior Court system for nearly a decade, Patel needs to produce “proof” that Dugan’s aim was to help the illegal immigrant escape.
“I think they overreached by arresting her. If there’s an issue in a white collar case, like with a public official… You don’t stop them on the street and put handcuffs on them. You say to their lawyer, ‘We need to talk to you about whether or not you will voluntarily surrender,'” he said during a segment on Newsmax.
The comment drew swift condemnation from Breanna Morello, an independent journalist who formerly worked with Napolitano at Fox News and alleged that he sexually harassed her during their time together in an elevator.
“Former judge Andrew Napolitano knows a thing or two about overreach. On 4/9/2019 at 12:35pm, Napolitano rubbed his groin on my backside while standing in a completely empty elevator at the NYC Fox Corp building,” she wrote on X.
“This incident took place while both of us worked for Fox News. I documented everything, and I wasn’t Napolitano’s first brush up.
“So let’s hold back from publicly discussing the topic of overreach, Napolitano,” she added.
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According to her biography, Morello worked at Fox News before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and broke with the company over its requirement for employees to receive an initial vaccination. That appears to place her at the cable news giant in the years following a cataclysmic fallout resulting from “MeToo” allegations against co-founder Roger Ailes.
Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and other prominent women at Fox alleged that Ailes for years groomed up-and-coming female stars, offering a leg-up in their careers in exchange for sexual favors. The allegations engulfed other stars at the network, including Bill O’Reilly, correspondent James Rosen, and executive Francisco Cortes, who were summarily forced out as a result.
Napolitano had been with Fox for more than two decades, serving as the network’s go-to judicial analyst. He was ousted in 2021 following a lawsuit by a male producer who accused him of stroking his arm and making sexually suggestive comments to him in private.
