Trump officials 'trying to intimidate' foreign judges to help right-wing allies

Donald Trump's diplomatic officials are accused of "trying to intimidate" a French judge in order to "subvert" a case being brought against a prominent far-right political leader, a practice the administration is further accused of employing "around the world."

Marine Le Pen is the leader of the far-right French political party, National Rally, and has unsuccessfully run for president in France three times since 2012, in races that nonetheless garnered considerable international spotlight. Her future as a candidate for office, however, is in jeopardy as she attempts to appeal a criminal conviction for embezzlement, following her guilty verdict last spring for misappropriating funds from the European Parliament to support her party's staffing. The conviction carries a four-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from seeking elected office, which would bar her from running in the 2027 presidential election.

On Tuesday, Alex Taylor, a journalist and TV presenter in France, shared a clip to X in which a French judge "explains how Trump sent people from the U.S. Embassy basically trying to intimidate her during Le Pen's trial for embezzlement." Taylor also added that this is "something they've done to other judges around the world." The judge said that she took a meeting with American diplomats, believing the topic of conversation would be human rights, but the focus quickly shifted to Le Pen's trial.

"The idea being to find, with me or others, elements indicating this was a purely political trial to stop her running for president," the judge explained, according to subtitles provided by Taylor. "The aim was to find proof of interference. I was so taken aback by what was said, by the tone — even if it was very courteous — that I did something I never do when I meet foreign diplomats, I notified the French Foreign Office of what was said in the conversation. I felt it was my duty to do so. I know it was taken seriously."

The judge, who was not named in the clip or by Taylor, confirmed that the incident took place at the end of May, which would have been roughly two months after Le Pen's conviction. Two months after the meeting, the judge noted, the US sanctioned a Brazilian judge, Alexandre de Moraes, who led the investigation into right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro's attempted coup following his loss in the 2022 presidential race, which the Trump administration decried as an "unlawful witch hunt." The sanctions were later lifted in December.

"U.S. officials are systematically seeking to subvert the independence of judiciaries around the world in the interests of political friends of the American right-wing," Columbia University historian Adam Tooze added in response to Taylor's original post.