The U.S. Senate voted 51-46 on Wednesday to confirm Jeffrey Kuntz to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Kuntz previously served as the chief judge of Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal, a position he was appointed to in 2016 by then-Governor Rick Scott.
Kuntz is the second judge from that state appeals court to be confirmed to the South Florida federal bench after ruling in favor of President Donald Trump in a defamation lawsuit involving the Pulitzer Prize Board. Judge Ed Artau, who served on the same state panel, was confirmed in September 2025. In February 2025, Kuntz authored a three-judge opinion that allowed Trump’s lawsuit against the board to proceed.
During his confirmation hearing in April, Democratic Senator Chris Coons questioned Kuntz regarding his decision not to recuse himself from the Pulitzer case. Kuntz testified that the case was randomly assigned to him in January 2025 and that he did not speak with the White House until after the court's opinion was finalized. He stated that his actions complied with Florida judicial ethics rules.
The underlying lawsuit stems from a 2018 Pulitzer Prize awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 election. President Trump sued the board in 2022, alleging defamation after the panel rejected his request to rescind the awards and issued a statement defending the reporting.