Hugh Hewitt

Hugh Hewitt (born February 22, 1956) is an American conservative political commentator, radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network, attorney, academic, and author.

He writes about law, society, politics, and media bias in the United States.

Hewitt is a former official in the Reagan administration, the former president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, a law professor at Chapman University School of Law, a columnist for The Washington Post, and a regular political commentator on Fox News.

Hewitt was born on February 22, 1956, in Warren, Ohio.

He is the son of Marguerite (née Rohl) and William Robert Hewitt.

He describes himself as "a descendant of both Ulster and the Republic through a green-orange marriage of immigrants from County Down and County Clare".

He attended John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Warren, Ohio.

He then graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. in government in 1978.

After leaving Harvard, he worked as a ghostwriter for Richard Nixon in California and New York, before studying at the University of Michigan Law School, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

Hewitt received his J.D. degree in 1983, then moved to Washington, D.C., to clerk for Judges Roger Robb and George MacKinnon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1983–84.

Hewitt worked in many posts in the Ronald Reagan administration, including deputy director and General Counsel of the Office of Personnel Management, General Counsel for the National Endowment for the Humanities, Assistant White House Counsel, and Special Assistant to the Attorney General.

In 1989, Hewitt became the executive director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

In 1990, he sparked controversy by proposing screening of researchers wishing to use the library resources.

Hewitt suggested refusing admission to researchers deemed "unfriendly" – specifically Bob Woodward, whom he characterized as "not a responsible journalist."

John Taylor, a spokesman for Nixon, overturned Hewitt's decision after two days.

It became the subject of editorial rebuke in The New York Times.

Hewitt left the Nixon Library in 1990.

In the spring of 1992, he began co-hosting L.A. PBS member station KCET's program Life & Times, and remained with the program until the fall of 2001, when he began broadcasting his own radio show.

He hosted a weekend radio talk show for the Los Angeles radio station KFI, where he broadcast until 1995.

Hewitt received three Emmys for his work on Life & Times on KCET, and also conceived and hosted the 1996 PBS series Searching for God in America.

He has worked as a weekly columnist for the Daily Standard (the online edition of The Weekly Standard) and World.

He has appeared on programs such as The Dennis Miller Show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Larry King Live, The O'Reilly Factor, The Today Show and The Colbert Report.

Hewitt also became a professor of law at Chapman University School of Law.

Hewitt founded the journal Nexus Journal of Law and Policy.

He used to spend the 15th hour of the week discussing movies with "Emmett of the Unblinking Eye".

Beginning April 4, 2016, the show moved to a morning drive time slot.

Although Hewitt's background is in law, government, and politics, he also covers American cultural trends and the entertainment industry.

He frequently critiques the mainstream media on air, often inviting journalists to defend their work on the show.

His regular contributors include law professors John C. Eastman, former Dean of Chapman University School of Law, and Erwin Chemerinsky, erstwhile Dean of UC Irvine Law School and current Dean of UC Berkeley School of Law (whom Hewitt calls "The Smart Guys"), James Lileks, Mark Steyn, United States Naval Academy English professor David Allen White (who does a monthly Shakespeare showcase), and Congressman David Dreier (R-CA), as well as frequent callers from around the country.

On June 24, 2017, Hugh Hewitt debuted, a half-hour television show which ran on MSNBC in the Saturdays 8 am EST timeslot.

On the show, he conducted interviews and provided commentary on current events.

On Saturday, June 30, 2018, Hewitt announced that the show had been cancelled, but that he would continue his commentary on the NBC family of networks.

In 2019, Hewitt returned to the Nixon Library as president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, the nonprofit that co-operates the Nixon Library with the National Archives and Records Administration.

On his first day in the job, Hewitt announced that he would split his time between Orange County and Washington, D.C., and open a Nixon Foundation office in Washington.

In November 2021, Hewitt was replaced as president and CEO by Jim Byron.

In March 2020, after Joe Biden won the South Carolina presidential primary, Hewitt predicted that Biden's victory would be of little benefit to his campaign and that Bernie Sanders would perform strongly on Super Tuesday; after Biden took the lead on Super Tuesday and eventually won the Democratic nomination, Politico named Hewitt's predictions among "the most audacious, confident and spectacularly incorrect prognostications about the year".

Hewitt's nationally syndicated radio show, The Hugh Hewitt Show, is broadcast from California from 6 to 9 am EST on weekdays.

The show appears on more than 75 stations and is syndicated by the Salem Radio Network.

In 2020, NBC and MSNBC stopped inviting Hewitt to appear on their programs, which constituted a breach of contract.

Thus, in 2021, Hewitt was released from that contract and started appearing on Fox News Channel.