Jason Miller was all set to be the White House communications director for the first Trump administration when news circulated that he’d had an affair with fellow campaign staffer, Arlene “AJ” Delgado. Delgado has a 7-year-old son that she contends belongs to Miller. The pair have spent the better part of a decade now litigating all over the place, from sex discrimination claims in New York federal court to paternity and child support claims floating around Florida. The Florida claims have, as Florida Bulldog put it yesterday, “gone through a carousel of judges in three judicial districts due to conflicts of interest and accusations of bias.”
And now they’ve added another.
Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Spencer Multack drew the short straw and took on the paternity case in 2021, becoming the ninth judge in this litigation which is basically Bleak House except with a very real 7-year-old child. Up until recently, it was Delgado who sought to toss Multack from the case, alleging bias in Miller’s favor. But then, after an appellate court opening arose, Miller went on the former Twitter to announce:
Judge Multack recused himself four hours later. Delgado’s attorney in the New York case informed that judge of the development last week, characterizing Miller’s remarks as “very real threats of professional harm.”
Any normal lawyer representing a client like this would have seen that tweet land and immediately aged twenty years.
“You know what would really help your ongoing child support battle? Publicly threatening the judge’s career on social media!” said no lawyer ever. Let’s put aside whether it’s fair to characterize a citizen stating his preference for an open judgeship as a “threat” with the intent of influencing the judge — which would open the door to a first-degree misdemeanor in Florida — and focus on how it’s just gobsmackingly stupid. The next judge that ends up hearing this dumpster fire litigation isn’t likely to say anything explicit, but unless Miller manages to draw a judge with some deep seated, comic-book enmity toward Judge Multack, everything Miller does from now on will draw healthy judicial side-eye.
This was also stupid because, if Miller actually had the juice to torpedo a judicial appointment, he wouldn’t need to announce it to 625,000 followers. If he had the sort of pull that could directly or indirectly convince Ron DeSantis to pass over Multack, he’d just do it. He would pick up the phone or have lunch with the right donor and end it. No need for a public show. Peak beta male move, as the kids might say.
Ultimately, this illustrates what public policy professor Don Moynihan has called the “clicktatorship” — the MAGA brain rot brought on by the toxic intersection of extreme social media brain and authoritarian impulses. As Moynihan put it, Trump culture embraces a world where “everything is content,” and its acolytes don’t just use social media for communication, but rewire their dopamine loops around online engagement. The platform is the message, if you will.
Which is why Miller couldn’t keep his battle in the courtroom. He just had to spill it over to social media and flex the power he imagines that his 600K+ followers give him over Florida judicial politics. When “EVERY resource I have,” is a few hundred thousand followers, that’s not the flex he thinks it is. In any event, Judge Multack is off the case and Delgado is moving to get the case moved to a whole new judicial circuit.
So we beat on, briefs against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the 2016 campaign.
Trump campaign mouthpiece Jason Miller threatens judge in his paternity case [Florida Bulldog]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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