Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said on Monday that Donald Trump Jr.’s now-infamous meeting with a Russian lawyer to find dirt on Hillary Clinton merits a criminal investigation.
“It is a crime to receive something of value, when you are a campaign official from a foreign person or a foreign government,” Napolitano said.
Trump Jr. and White House surrogates have repeatedly claimed that the president’s eldest son didn’t receive any useful information a result of the meeting. Host Sandra Smith then asked if it would be a crime if he did receive information.
“That would have been a felony, that would have been the completion of a crime,” Napolitano said. So the question is, is this enough to commence a criminal investigation? Answer: yes.”
Napolitano continued: “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, they didn’t consult a lawyer, and one of these people is a former KGB/GRU… Why didn’t Jared Kushner tell the FBI about it when he filled out his national security application unless he was trying to hide something?”
Napolitano questioned if Kushner was trying to hide that this was simply a “foolish” thing to do, or “the beginning” of steps required to obtain illegal information.
Back in March, Trump tweeted unsubstantiated claims that former President Obama had illegally wiretapped Trump Tower before last fall’s election. During a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on March 17, Trump deflected a question about his tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower by blaming a report by Napolitano.
Trump blamed Fox News because Napolitano went on “Fox & Friends” a few weeks prior to the incident and said that “three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command” to spy on Trump during last year’s election.
Fox News host Shepard Smith made the following statement shortly after Trump’s comments during the press conference with Merkel: “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary. Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-President of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way, full stop.”
Napolitano was briefly sidelined but stood by his report and obviously remains on Fox News.
Check out the video above.