In his first appearance on the network since he disappeared from Fox News’ airwaves more than a week ago, legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano stuck by his claim that the British intelligence service GCHQ surveilled Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign at the request of former President Barack Obama.
Napolitano left the airwaves without explanation after White House press secretary Sean Spicer read that claim from the podium during a White House press briefing. Asked about the claim at a news conference the following day, Trump said simply: “You should be talking to Fox.”
“Yes I do” stand by the story, Napolitano told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer on Wednesday. “And the sources stand by it.”
“The American public needs to know more about this rather than less, because a lot of the government surveillance authorities will expire in the fall and there will be a great debate about how much authority we want the government to have to surveil us,” he continued. “And the more the American public knows about this, the more informed their and Congress’s decisions will be.”
“I think a lot more’s going to come,” he said, without specifying if he was talking about his claim or the congressional debate over surveillance authorities.
After Trump made the still-unsubstantiated charge in early March that Obama had ordered the surveillance of Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, Napolitano reported, citing unnamed sources, that “the British foreign surveillance service, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s calls.”
Napolitano wrote that Obama would have asked GCHQ to surveil Trump in order to avoid any “fingerprints” in the form of an authorization paper trail.
After Trump told the reporter asking about the story to talk to Fox News, two anchors on that network, Shepard Smith and Bret Baier, said the network could not back up Napolitano’s claims.
A spokesperson for GCHQ told Fox News, in response to the story: ”Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then President Elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
Watch Napolitano’s Wednesday appearance below, via Fox News:
H/t Mediaite.
Trump: I rest my case.
FOX: We apologize for taking a smart man off the air.
“And the more the American public knows about this, the more informed their and Congress’s decisions will be.”
“I think a lot more’s going to come,” he said, without specifying if he was talking about his claim or the congressional debate over surveillance authorities.
…
Well, this all bodes well.
Edit for details:
A) Great we’ve got this gem of shining truth back on the air
B) Sounds like he’s on a mission to misinform towards a specific agenda
C) “a lot more’s going to come” sounds oddly like he’s got a lead on the next batch of IC community information that will hit Wikileaks.
Welp. So much for taking him off the air!
Well it must be true then.
Napolitano is, always has been, and always will be an asshole. Therefore, he is a perfect fit for the Asshole-elect’s team, Sad.