HEWITT
Hugh

• 1. Career

Hugh Hewitt 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 former columnist for The Washington Post, and a regular political commentator on Fox News. He is the 14th most-listened-to radio talk show host in the United States.

Career

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

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. He succeeded businessman William H. Baribault. 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".