Fox News legal analyst Judge Napolitano told viewers that if today's New York Times blockbuster report is accurate, he's "never seen anything like this before" and it "breaks new grounds' as far as presidential interference in ongoing criminal investigations.
Shepard Smith had on the senior Fox News analyst at the top of the hour to get into the entirety of the new report.
It alleges Trump tried to get Whitaker, his new AG to install US Attorney Geoffrey Berman (Trump's nominee) to oversee the SDNY Michael Cohen investigation even though he had correctly recused himself. After Matthew said he could not since he had recused himself, Trump, as usual, trashed him for not being able to do what he wanted in Justice to help make his legal problems go away.
Discussing obstruction, Napolitano said, "but if you try to interfere with a criminal prosecution that may knock at your own door by putting your ally in there, that is clearly an attempt to obstruct justice.”
They discussed that Whitaker's earlier testimony may come into question for Congress when they investigate these allegations. Judge Nap said you can't willfully mislead Congress with your testimony.
"You can be truthful but still misleading," he said.
Shepard asked if the report was accurate about a phone call that Trump made to Whitaker, was it evidence and Napolitano said, "Corrupt intent. That is an effort to use the levers of power of the government for a corrupt purpose. To deflect an investigation into himself or his allies.
Later in the segment, they were both flabbergasted that Trump tried to get his Congressional allies "to interfere with Mueller or embarrass Mueller.
"Quite frankly, "I've never seen anything like this before. A sitting president of the United States using his allies in Congress to interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation," Napolitano said. "This breaks new ground."
Watch the whole video clip because they go into the nuts and bolts of what the Times is reporting and it's very disturbing.
Yet again, Trump is trying to control and influence investigations swirling around himself, the Russians, his campaign staff and his Trump Organization by trying to force having the people in charge of the DOJ installing Trump loyalists to either shield him or snuff them all out. That's mafioso type behavior and not fit for any politician let alone a sitting U.S. president.
And we saw in real time how disturbing Rep. Devin Nunes' actions were as chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee.
On a massive scale (On orders from Trump?) he went to great lengths trying to protect Trump by destroying the integrity of his own committee.
That's next-level corruption.
Napolitano got it exactly right.
