Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano is under fire after accusing President Donald Trump of “criminal” and “immoral” behavior.
Fox fans were surprised when Napolitano, a former defender of Trump, joined the chorus of mindless liberal talking heads claiming that the president obstructed Robert Mueller’s investigation into collusion that never happened. Napolitano’s remarks set off a feud with the president, who attacked him in a Saturday tweet claiming that Napolitano was seeking revenge after Trump passed him over for a job on the Supreme Court. Now, some say that Napolitano should be fired from Fox News.
If Napolitano has been compromised by conflicts of interest, then his word against Trump is as good as Michael Cohen’s. And with the rest of the liberal media already gas-lighting the president and the country over the Mueller report, what is the point of having a Fox News legal analyst do the work of CNN and MSNBC anyway?
Napolitano under fire
Responding to Trump’s twitter fusillade on Fox Business Monday, Napolitano made insinuations to Maria Bartiromo about Trump that came right out of disgraced former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s playbook.”This is the way you treat your friends, how do you treat your enemies? Oh boy,” Napolitano said.
But according to Trump, Napolitano’s “friendship” was conditional on favors. In a Saturday tweet attacking Napolitano, Trump thanked legal analyst Alan Dershowitz for “destroying” the “very dumb legal argument” put forward by Napolitano and claimed that the former New Jersey Superior Court Judge felt jilted after Trump denied him a Supreme Court appointment and refused to pardon a friend.
“Ever since Andrew came to my office to ask that I appoint him to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I said NO, he has been very hostile! Also asked for pardon for his friend. A good ‘pal’ of low ratings Shepard Smith,” he said.
Like Napolitano, Fox anchor Shepard Smith is notable for his hostility towards Trump, despite working for the network that liberals describe as a mouthpiece for the White House. But Napolitano has not always been an anti-Trump hack. In fact, he was briefly suspended from Fox News in 2017 after claiming that British intelligence wire-tapped Trump.
Those days seem to be thoroughly in the past, as Napolitano has adjusted to his new job as an anti-Trump pundit riffing off Fake News talking points. The former Trump booster quipped to Baritoromo that Trump was “brilliant[ly]”attempting to “divert attention” from the Mueller report by attacking him. Napolitano’s claim is a common gaslighting cliche in the liberal media and would have been right at home at MSNBC. The network’s top conspiracy theorist Rachel Maddow once claimed that Trump ordered an air strike in Syria to cover for his personal scandals.
Speaking with Bartiromo, Napolitano denied seeking a Supreme Court job from Trump and said that it was the president who made the offer. But whatever Trump told Napolitano apparently excited him, as he told friends he was on the short-list, according to Politico. Trump met with Napolitano twice during the presidential transition.
Napolitano completes anti-Trump evolution
Apparently spiteful after losing that coveted job, Napolitano has gradually evolved from a Trump defender into an anti-Trump hack. He appeared to complete his transformation last week when he claimed that Mueller’s report “might be enough to prosecute” Trump and that it depicts a “venal, amoral, deceptive” president on his Fox Nation show Judge Napolitano’s Chambers. In another monologue, Napolitano called Trump’s behavior “immoral” and “criminal.”
“Prosecutors prosecute people who interfere with government functions, and that’s what the president did by obstruction. Where is this going to end? I don’t know, but I am disappointed in the behavior of the president,” he said.
“If he had ordered his aides to violate federal law to save a human life or to preserve human freedom, he would at least have a moral defense to his behavior,” he added. “But ordering them to break federal law to save him from the consequences of his own behavior, that is immoral, that is criminal, that is defenseless, that is condemnable.”
In a Fox op-ed last week, Napolitano argued that an attempt at obstruction does not need to be successful to warrant a charge, claiming that Mueller “laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump.” By this reasoning, Napolitano claims that even acts that fell within Trump’s constitutional authority, like firing James Comey, were criminal.
Napolitano’s claims validated the Democrats’ latest narrative against Trump, which focuses on obstruction rather than the now-discredited collusion. Democrats have stepped up calls to impeach Trump over alleged obstruction of justice since Robert Mueller found that Trump did not collude with Russia. Like former Trump loyalists who turned heel before him, like Michael Cohen, Napolitano has been welcomed by liberals who point to his claim as proof that even conservatives and former friends of Trump agree that he’s a criminal sleazeball.
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