Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano put some distance between himself and many of his Fox colleagues when it comes to President Donald Trump seeking assistance from a foreign leader in the upcoming election, describing it as an “act of corruption” that is the “most serious charge” yet against the president.
Appearing Monday on the Fox Business Network, Napolitano—who warned in June that Trump was “prepared to commit a felony to get re-elected—was asked by host David Asman about the ongoing controversy surrounding a whistleblower’s complaint surrounding Trump’s communications with Ukraine.
“Who is in more trouble here,” Asman declared. “The president who had this phone call with the Ukrainian leader or Joe Biden who actually did have a quid pro quo with regard to Ukraine when he was vice president?” (The Ukrainian prosecutor general said in May that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or his son Hunter.)
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“I think this is the most serious charge against the president, far more serious than what Bob Mueller dug or dragged up against him,” Napolitano noted. “If there was a quid pro quo—it does appear as though a quarter of a billion dollars in defensive weaponry was held back for a period of time while these eight conversations were going on between the president.”
Asman, meanwhile, pointed to a Wall Street Journal report noting that the July call between Trump and the Ukrainian president didn’t reveal a specific quid pro quo.
“So if you are the President of the United States and you are making a conversation that you know your intelligence community is listening to,” the judge replied. “Of course you’re not going to articulate a quid pro quo. You’ll just make the quid pro quo happen.”
Trump, for his part, essentially admitted to threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine on the call if they didn’t investigate “corruption,” apparently referencing Biden and his son, telling reporters on Monday that “if you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?”
Asman pivoted to Biden, claiming the former vice president voiced a “direct quid pro quo” when he threatened to withhold a billion-dollar loan guarantee—at the behest of several Western countries—if Ukraine didn’t dismiss its then-prosecutor general Viktor Shokin for corruption. The Fox Business host parroted Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s accusations that Shokin was actively investigating Hunter Biden’s company at the time of his dismissal, an assertion that has long been debunked.
Napolitano agreed that while “this is probably the end of Joe Biden’s presidency” hopes, it “doesn’t diminish one iota what the current president is doing.”
“If it is true, we haven’t seen the whistle-blower complaint and under the law it has to be revealed, if this is true this is an act of corruption,” the Fox analyst exclaimed.
Hours later, during an appearance on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, Napolitano reiterated his belief that Trump’s alleged actions were “far more serious” than anything detailed in the Mueller Report before offering up a correction regarding Biden’s campaign.
"Last time I was sitting here, Dave Asman was filling in for Neil [Cavuto], and I said this might jeopardize Vice President Biden's campaign, it might even be the end of it,” he told guest host Charles Payne. “I believe I was wrong.”
“I have since learned that most of Europe wanted this prosecutor to go, that he was an agent of corruption,” Napolitano added. “He was not rooting out corruption. And unfortunately, when he did go, not all the corruption in the Ukraine left."
After Payne said “people are concerned” about whether or not there was “influence peddling” going on with the Bidens, Napolitano pointed out that multiple Ukrainian prosecutors over the years have said there was “no case” against the Biden family and “no there there.”
