Trump: Fox’s Napolitano asked me to pardon his friend, put him on Supreme Court

President Trump tweeted Saturday that Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano met with him and urged him to nominate Napolitano to the Supreme Court as well as grant a pardon to one of Napolitano’s friends.

Napolitano, a former superior court judge in New Jersey, works as a legal analyst for Fox News. In a pair of tweets Saturday evening following his campaign rally in Green Bay, Wis., the president accused the commentator of becoming “very hostile” after Trump supposedly turned him down for the nation’s highest court.

“Thank you to brilliant and highly respected attorney Alan Dershowitz for destroying the very dumb legal argument of ‘Judge’ Andrew Napolitano,” Trump wrote.

“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 added, referring to Fox’s chief news anchor, who has often been critical of the White House.

Thank you to brilliant and highly respected attorney Alan Dershowitz for destroying the very dumb legal argument of “Judge” Andrew Napolitano….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2019

….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.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2019

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment regarding when the conversation with Napolitano occurred or whom the Fox News commentator supposedly asked Trump to pardon.

Napolitano said on Monday, however, that he did not ask Trump to appoint him to the Supreme court.

“No- he and I spoke for about three hours and two 90 minute meetings. This is when he was the president elect about the type of person that should replace Justice Scalia. And in the process of my describing that person and the person I was describing, was then Judge Neil Gorsuch, he looked to me and said sounds like you’re describing yourself. I said no, no I’m not describing myself, I’m describing Neil Gorsuch because you have this list of people from which you want to choose and Judge Gorsuch is the person that I think most of your advisers are going to point to,” Napolitano said Monday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.”

“This was early on in the process. So he said alright give me, give me a spiel as to why I should put you on. Who would turn that down. I gave him the spiel so to speak and somebody else in the room said you know that’s pretty interesting, the judge is a little long in the tooth to which the president said blank you to the person who said the judge is long in the tooth… I’m four years older than the judge and I’m about to become president. It was that kind of a conversation.”

Napolitano also said he and Trump discussed a pardon for a “mutual friend” and “he asked me to tell me what the person was convicted of and if I thought the conviction was just.

“I described what the person was convicted of. I described that it was just, the president used a very strong term to condemn the conviction and he said you know this person as well as I do, call this person up and tell him, tell this person he’s going to be on the list of pardons that I will seriously consider. That was the extent of that conversation,” Napolitano added.

“Look, I thought the president’s comments were brilliant. He wanted to divert attention from what Mueller had said about him and what I had commented about Mueller to his relationship with me, his relationship with me is not the story. He and I have been friends for 30 years and probably will be for the next 30 years.”

Trump frequently showers praise on Fox News figures who are seen as allies of his administration, including Dershowitz, who has defended the president amid the now-concluded investigation into Russia’s election interference and Trump’s campaign.

–This report was updated on April 29 at 6:07 p.m.