Judge Andrew Napolitano has taken his general anti-Trump stance to its logical conclusion, saying he would “certainly” vote to impeach the president.
The Fox News senior judicial analyst made his pronouncement during an appearance on “America’s Newsroom,” during which he said that that “the Democrats have credibly argued that [Trump] committed impeachable offenses,” as reported by Fox News.
“The easiest one, because this existed in Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, is obstruction of Congress,” said Napolitano. “So, by directing his subordinates to refuse to comply with lawfully issued subpoenas, whether it’s for testimony or for documents, that’s an impeachable offense. We know that from history, every time the House of Representatives has looked at that with respect to a president, they found it to be impeachable. On that, reasonable minds cannot disagree without rejecting history and without rejecting constitutional norms.”
When host Bill Hemmer asked the former judge if he would vote for impeachment in the House, Napolitano replied that he “certainly would.”
“I certainly would.” Napolitano said.
Though Napolitano conceded that the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing yesterday on the impeachment inquiry will do little to change public opinion against Trump, he warned that “letting Trump be Trump is not good enough under the Constitution.”
“We don’t lower the bar because the president has unorthodox ways,” he said. “The bar is intentionally broad and even ambiguous as to what high crimes and misdemeanors are. We learned today that the Democrats apparently intend to include in there things we didn’t know they were going to include, like bribery, like the obstruction of justice allegations which were made by [former Special Counsel] Bob Mueller long before the Ukraine case came to the public’s attention.”
Judge Napolitano has consistently been on board with Democratic Party’s attacks on President Trump. He has also consistently been wrong in his predictions about the political fallout. For instance, in December of 2018, he said that the Department of Justice has “ample evidence” to indict President Trump based on the then-ongoing Mueller investigation.
“You think that a grand jury subpoena is a real thing that might come for President Trump?” former Fox News host Shep Smith asked at the time.
“Yes, I do,” replied Napolitano. “I think that Bob Mueller knows that he needs to lock the president in to a version of events before he takes the next step — whatever the next step is, whether it’s indictment or whether it’s a referral for impeachment.”
“Last week, in federal district court here in New York City, a federal judge at the end of Michael Cohen’s sentencing said the president orchestrated and paid for this crime,” Napolitano continued. “He was referring to one of the nine to which Michael Cohen had pleaded guilty.”
The Mueller report proved largely futile for Democrats, as the president was never indicted and Democrats never pursued impeachment based on its findings. Democrats and anti-Trumpers such as George Conway and Napolitano have decided to run with the “it’s all about the Constitution” line, despite the fact that many would say the Democrats’ current impeachment inquiry is all about politics and the 2020 election.