Andrew Napolitano Calls Acquittal a ‘Legal Assault on the Constitution’: Trump Is ‘Clearly Guilty’

Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano restated his opinion that President Donald Trump is “clearly guilty” of impeachment charges brought against him, regardless of Wednesday’s acquittal by the Senate.

In a new op-ed, Napolitano condemned the GOP-controlled Senate for voting to block evidence and witness testimony from being included in Trump’s trial. He said the result of this decision by Republican Senator leaders is that “the truth-telling mission of Trump’s trial was radically transformed into a steamroller of political power.”

“The evidence that Trump did this is overwhelming and beyond a reasonable doubt, and no one with firsthand knowledge denied it,” Napolitano said. “Numerous government officials recounted that the presidential leverage of $391 million in U.S. assistance for a personal political favor did occur and the government’s own watchdog concluded that it was indisputably unlawful.”

Napolitano went on to challenge Alan Dershowitz’s argument that Trump can’t be impeached if he believes his actions served the national interest while simultaneously boosting his electoral fortunes. Napolitano said this line of thinking means Congress is essentially “ceding power to the presidency” and deciding that a president can “engage in high crimes and misdemeanors so long as he believes that they are in the national interest and so long as his party has an iron-clad grip on the Senate.”

“This morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest argument – which effectively resuscitates from history’s graveyard President Richard Nixon’s logic that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” because the president is above the law – must have resonated with Senate Republican leaders. The leaders coerced their Senate Republican colleagues into embracing the view that – since the president did not want Bolton to testify or White House emails to be revealed – they must bar all witnesses and documents.”

Napolitano concluded by railing against the senators “who shut their eyes and ears at Trump’s trial” instead of voting to hear evidence like John Bolton’s testimony. He asked why the president would do so much to block evidence about his actions if they were so “perfect,” and “Who – having taken an oath to do ‘impartial justice’ – would close their eyes to the truth? How could such a marathon of speeches possibly be considered a trial?”

“Trump will luxuriate in his victory. But the personal victory for him is a legal assault on the Constitution. The president has taken an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Instead, he has trashed it. How? By manipulating Senate Republicans to bar firsthand evidence and keep it from senatorial and public scrutiny, Trump and his Senate collaborators have insulated him and future presidents from the moral and constitutional truism that no president is above the law. Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling.”