Democratic judicial candidate in Queens seemingly called for Biden’s execution online
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Julie Milner is running for the Civil Court bench in Queens as a Democrat. She’s tweeted in the past seemingly calling for the president's execution. Photos via Milner/X
By Jacob Kaye
Julie Milner, an attorney running for a spot on Queens’ Civil Court bench, is a prolific tweeter.
Sometimes taking to the social media site X – formerly known as Twitter – a dozen or more times in a single day, Milner often posts her daily Wordle score, wishes congratulations to those finding success or sends her sympathies to those going through hard times. She retweets stories from news outlets about local cultural or weather events, and posts pictures from the campaign trail.
But Milner’s social media account also appears to show a judicial candidate prone to spreading conspiracy theories, and one who shares opinions on a number of political topics despite judicial ethics rules that prohibit similar comments.
A deep dive into her feed on X unveils that Milner, who is running as a Democrat, has previously latched on to issues championed by the far-right. She has tweeted seemingly in support of bans on LGBTQ+ books – which she called “filthy, pornographic smut” – in school libraries and has questioned the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Milner has also retweeted posts from a number of accounts associated with former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. Many of those accounts appear to espouse racist, transphobic and antisemitic rhetoric.
On at least two occasions, Milner herself appeared to call for the execution of President Joe Biden.
“Impeach, remove, indict, execute,” Milner tweeted twice in January 2023 in response to posts about Biden’s alleged improper handling of classified documents.
In an email, Milner declined to comment on specific tweets brought to her attention by the Eagle, including the tweet about Biden’s execution.
“I am a Common Sense Democrat and not part of the MAGA movement,” Milner said. “I follow a wide range of accounts on Twitter and prior to my candidacy have engaged in public discourse, which is the foundation of democracy.”
Queens Democratic Civil Court Candidate Julie Milner. photo via Julie4judge/instagram
Indeed, Milner’s tweets reflect a wide range of positions that aren’t easily categorized into one political ideology.
While she’s retweeted a post from right-wing media personality Mark Levin – in which Levin linked to a story suggesting that financial support for the recent pro-Palistinian protests on college campuses comes from George Soros, the billionaire who far-right figures often use a stand-in for a conspiracy theory that wealthy Jews are behind a plot to implement a new world order – she’s also posted positive messages about a number of local Democratic lawmakers.
When moderate Democrat Tom Suozzi was elected to Congress earlier this year, defeating Republican candidate Mazi Pilip, Milner tweeted, “Democracy won after all.”
But a week prior to Suozzi’s election, Milner retweeted a post from Republican Congressmember Elise Stefanik, in which the staunch Trump ally said that Biden was “unfit to be President of the United States.”
During the height of the pandemic, Milner fired off a number of tweets that echoed, at the time, positions taken by right-wing Republicans in regard to the vaccine.
“No one can prove that vaccines didn’t cause or exacerbate autism,” Milner said in a July 2022 tweet. “Ask parents of children on the spectrum when the symptoms started. Right after the vaccine.”
In April 2021, Milner retweeted a story from NBC New York about a pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to rare complications. In response, Milner said, “Does anyone believe the vaccine is being pulled for ‘rare’ complications? Wake up.”
Her April tweet was followed by an emoji of sheep, which is often used to derogatorily refer to a group of people who are docile and easily influenced by those in power.
An April 2021 tweet from judicial candidate Julie Milner appearing to question the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine. Screenshot via Milner/X
Milner has also tweeted seemingly in support of a number of conspiracy theories, some of which have been pushed by right-wing leaders.
In three separate tweets, Milner claimed that the “Oswald narrative,” or the widely held belief that John F. Kennedy was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, was a lie.
In a tweet from January of this year, Milner appeared to claim that a group of Proud Boys, who have been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an “alt-right fight club,” riding on a New York City subway were actually federal agents.
The conspiracy theory echoes those of a number of far-right figures, who have previously claimed the federal government has been behind a number of “false flag” operations organized to confuse the public.
Milner, a civil rights attorney, is running for one of two vacant Civil Court seats in the borough as a Democrat.
In the Democratic primary in June, she’ll face off against attorneys Sharifa Nasser-Cuellar and Amish Doshi, both of whom are backed by the Queens County Democratic Party. Also on the ballot will be Glenda Hernandez.
Both Milner and Hernandez’s campaigns are associated with Hiram Monserrate, the former state senator who was expelled from the legislative body after he was convicted of misdemeanor assault charges involving an incident with his then-girlfriend. He later served time in federal prison because of corruption charges related to his time in the City Council.
Monserrate, who has successfully backed around a half dozen judicial candidates in their bids against Queens County Democratic Party candidates in the past several years, declined to comment for this story through a spokesperson.
Milner appears to have pitched herself to voters as the anti-establishment candidate in the race for Civil Court, according to her social media account.
“These judicial seats for far too long have been used as party favors for political hacks,” Milner said in a March 2 tweet. “These seats belong to We the People and we’re taking them back.”
But Milner also appears to have campaigned on a number of political issues, despite the fact that the state’s judicial ethics rules mostly forbid candidates from taking positions on nearly all political topics.
In her emailed statement to the Eagle, Milner said that since announcing her candidacy she has “curtailed my speech to conform to the ethical rules.”
“It is vital that our judges come to the bench with an open heart and free mind so that each case is ruled upon solely on the law and its applicability to the facts,” Milner told the Eagle.
According to the state’s judicial ethics guide, judicial candidates may not make a pledge or promise to “[i]mply a predisposition to decide particular classes of cases in a particular way.”
Also according to the judicial ethics guide, the Commission on Judicial Conduct – the watchdog group that investigates complaints against judges – has previously admonished a judge for “statements which, when viewed in their entirety, conveyed bias because they ‘single[d] out a particular class of litigants for special treatment.’”
In a March 1 tweet, Milner said that “we need to…make sure to elect judges who are sympathetic to homeowners and small landlords.”
She signed off that tweet using the hashtag “Julie4Judge.”
A March 1 tweet from judicial candidate Julie Milner. Screenshot via Milner/X
Similarly, she’s tweeted a number of times using the “BackTheBlue” hashtag, which is used to signal support for police officers.
“Judges have to come in ready to read the law, ready to take the evidence in and make a ruling based on that,” said Antonio Alfonso, the political director of the Queens County Democratic Party, whose candidates are running against Milner. “They should not be coming into Civil Court already assuming that one side over the other is going to win, just because of X [reason].”
Milner is seemingly aware of the ethics rules governing judicial candidates, having tweeted about them several times.
“I’m running against the machine,” Milner said in a Feb. 17 tweet, around half a month before she tweeted about electing judges who will be sympathetic to small landlords. “That’s why I locked down my account and curtailed my political speech. Judicial candidates’ ethical rules are tricky.”
