Shortly after the public release of the redacted Mueller report, Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano on Thursday said the documents show the president is “immoral” and “repellent,” but that his behavior doesn’t rise to the “level of criminality.”
Asked by Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner about how Democrats will officially respond to the findings, Napolitano said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “herding sheep” as she has one wing that “wants to undermine the president” and a moderate group concerned “that the rush to impeachment might actually backfire.”
At the same time, the judge—who has emerged as Fox’s “lonely truth-teller” when it comes to Trump matters—noted there were items in the report that Attorney General William Barr failed to hint at during a pre-spin press conference on Thursday morning.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The president—the behavior of the president is immoral, deceptive, and repellent,” Napolitano exclaimed. “But it doesn’t rise to the level of criminality. And that’s kind of apparent.”
The judge went on to explain that House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) will look at the potential incidents of obstruction listed in the report and decide if it’s enough of a basis to move forward with impeachment
“That is a political judgment and not a legal one,” he reminded Faulkner.
As for the president directing a misleading statement in response to news that his son, Donald Trump Jr., met with Russians at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, Napolitano pointed out that this was not redacted in the report because it shows the president using a government asset (Air Force One) to perpetuate a public fraud, which is an impeachable offense.
“Do they want to go there?” Napolitano wondered aloud. “I hope they don’t. I lived through two impeachment efforts in my life. I don’t want to go through this again. I don’t think a country wants to go through it.”
Prior to his segment with Faulkner, Napolitano said on Fox Business Network that the Mueller report shows Trump’s “pattern of deception and instruction to underlings to deceive” and that it could “gin up an investigation by the Southern District of New York.”
