New book says William Barr told Rupert Murdoch to 'muzzle' Fox News personality critical of Trump

William Barr.
(Image credit: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

A new book claims that at the direction of President Trump, Attorney General William Barr asked Rupert Murdoch to "muzzle" Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News personality who said that Trump had engaged in "criminal and impeachable behavior."

In Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter explores how entwined the network is with the president. The Guardian reports that in one portion of Hoax, Stelter writes that Trump became irate last year when Napolitano criticized him, writing in an October 3 Fox News article that the "criminal behavior to which Trump has admitted is much more grave than anything alleged or unearthed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and much of what Mueller revealed was impeachable."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.