Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” network senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano questioned President Donald Trump’s claim the FBI spied on him and his 2016 presidential campaign.
Napolitano said he would like to see “evidence” of the claim, which he described as “outrageous.”
Partial transcript as follows:
MACCALLUM: So, also with us tonight, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, who has been listening to this, Judge, you know, your thoughts on what the congressman and I were talking about in terms of this spy issue whether or not the president should be concerned about it.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: Well full disclosure, Congressman Gowdy and I are buddies and we have discussed this before I listen to him tonight. He is really the perfect person to talk to about this because he’s seen a lot of things that the rest of us have not seen.
But the allegations by Mayor Giuliani over weekend which would lead us to believe that the Trump people think that the FBI had an undercover agent who inveigled his way into the campaign, and was there as a spy on the campaign seem to be baseless, there’s no evidence for that whatsoever.
MACCALLUM: All right, go ahead.
NAPOLITANO: But the other allegation about this professor whose name we’re not supposed to mention, talking to people on the periphery of the campaign that is standard operating procedure in intelligence gathering, and in Criminal Investigations.
MACCALLUM: All right. But obviously, that the president is concerned about the existence of that person. He feels like there was someone spying on the campaign. And you know, it just goes back to the other question about if that were the case, and the president said I want to know if anybody’s working with Russia, why would — why was he not sort of clued into that and he talked about that in a tweet over this weekend. Should he have been?
NAPOLITANO: In my opinion, yes. But quite frankly, that’s a judgment call. Sometimes you don’t want to tell people that you are worried about whether or not their organization has been invaded so to speak because you don’t want that word to get out there, and you don’t wanted to affect the – –
MACCALLUM: But judge, they are claiming that, that invasion was so deep that it impacted the outcome of the election. That’s what James Clapper, says.
NAPOLITANO: Yes, yes.
MACCALLUM: So, if that’s happening, it’s like a crime in progress.
NAPOLITANO: Yes, and listen, I came —
MACCALLUM: Right? So how can you not step in, and say, “Look, you, you, and you, you are off the campaign. We want to know who you’ve been talking to.” You know, is it not — you know, stopping a crime in progress?
NAPOLITANO: I understand the president’s frustration that he was not informed of the fact that his campaign was being investigated, not because they think the campaign did anything wrong. But some people may have unwittingly, or perhaps, wittingly welcome to the Russian involvement in the campaign that Donald Trump didn’t know about it.
What I have told the — a candidate, I would have. But I respect the judgment of those who decided not to tell him. Now, look if they were there for some nefarious reason that the one Giuliani suggested to gather data from the campaign and pass it to the West Wing, and pass it to Mrs. Clinton, I’d want to see evidence of that before I made an allegation that outrageous.
(h/t RCP Video)
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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