Exposed: Judge who allowed Trump’s 'frivolous' Russiagate suit was cruising for a job

Chief Judge Jeffrey Kuntz of Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeals appears before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., U.S. April 29, 2026.

Law and Crime reports an ethics complaint has been lodged against a judge who paved the way for President Donald Trump’s stalled “Russiagate” defamation suit against the Pulitzer Prize board.

Press advocacy group Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed a complaint on Tuesday with the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission against Jeffrey Kuntz, chief judge of the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal.

“Last February, Kuntz ruled in President Donald Trump’s favor in Trump’s frivolous defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, even though he was seeking a nomination from Trump to the federal judiciary,” claims the FPF, adding that “he failed to recuse himself from the case or disclose his conflict of interest to the parties, in violation of ethical rules governing Florida judges.”

But then, two weeks after Kuntz ruled in favor of Trump, the White House Counsel’s Office interviewed him for judicial vacancy he sought to fill. The FPF reports Kuntz was nominated to the federal bench last month and has even faced questions from lawmakers about his failure to recuse himself from the Pulitzer case — or even to disclose his conflict of interest to the parties.

“Trump can’t win his SLAPP suits on the merits, so he finds ways to corrupt the court system instead — from extracting bribes in exchange for merger approvals to settling litigation with his own agencies to rewarding judges who rule in his favor with lifetime appointments,” wrote FPF Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern. “It defies credibility that … Kuntz didn’t think the Pulitzer Board might want to know that he was applying for a job with Trump — a president infamous for transactionalism and political favoritism — while deciding Trump’s lawsuit against them.”

“In any event, the Florida rules don’t leave it up to Kuntz’s subjective, self-serving discretion — judges must avoid even the appearance of impropriety,” Stern added.

Law and Crime reports Trump’s beef began with The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of the Mueller investigation. When the Pulitzer board released a statement backing 2018 Pulitzer Prizes for the two papers Trump screamed “defamation” and sued.

Chief Judge Jeffrey Kuntz wrote the decision allowing Trump's lawsuit to move forward in February 2025, agreeing that Trump "sufficiently pled that the 18 defendants engaged in a conspiracy to defame him."

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