It is rare for legal analysts to garner personal attacks from politicians but President Donald Trump went after Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano this weekend in surprising tweets accusing him of a personal vendetta. Napolitano has been critical of Trump recently and the President insisted that he is retaliating after asking Trump to nominate him for the Supreme Court and to pardon a close friend. I have known Napolitano for years and I have always respected his professionalism and integrity. I have no reason to believe that his analysis is the result of anything other than honest appraisals of the case for prosecution or impeachment of the President.
Recently, Napolitano stated
“If [Trump] had ordered his aides to violate federal law to save a human life or to preserve human freedom, he would at least have a moral defense to his behavior. But ordering them to break federal law to save him from the consequences of his own behavior that is immoral, that is criminal, that is defenseless, and that is condemnable.”
In a Saturday tweet, Trump said that Napolitano became “very hostile” after asking Trump to put him on the Supreme Court. Trump tweeted
“Thank you to brilliant and highly respected attorney Alan Dershowitz for destroying the very dumb legal argument of ‘Judge’ Andrew Napolitano. Ever since Andrew came to my office to ask that I appoint him to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I said NO, he has been very hostile! Also asked for pardon for his friend. A good ‘pal’ of low ratings Shepard Smith.”
It is not clear what person Trump is referencing on the pardon, though Napolitano should address that allegation. However, Napolitano reportedly told friends that Trump had him on the short list for a Supreme Court appointment.
Again, I fail to see why Napolitano’s analysis warrants such an attack on his professional integrity and veracity. He is not the type of person to have personal animus warp his legal analysis even if such animus existed. What I do not understand why the President must seek to destroy the reputation of those who disagree with his actions or view those actions as the basis for possible liability.
Napolitano and I do not always agree but I have never known him to offer analysis about of bias or animus. His recent views are no exception to that well-earned reputation as a legal analyst.
So it okay for Judge Nap (Superior Court Judge only – hell of a qualification) to falsely attack President Trump’s character and honesty, along with 99% of the MSM 24/7/365, just to delegitimize the 2016 election. If someone falsely accused me of something, I would strike back also. Wouldn’t you (be honest)?
“What I do not understand why the President must seek to destroy the reputation of those who disagree with his actions or view those actions as the basis for possible liability.”
– Jonathan Turley, The Hill columnist
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.”
– Upton Sinclair
The obvious explanation: Trump must destroy the reputation of those people who threaten him because he does not have the power to silence them in any other way.
A++
Well he can silence them the way a visiting sports team silences the fanatical opposition crowd. By soundly beating their team. That he’s doing and they really don’t like it. And for destroying reputations, you really need to have a good one one before anybody can affect it negatively. Trump’s opponents — not to much.
” And for destroying reputations, you really need to have a good one one before anybody can affect it negatively.”
That is the point. Anonymous sources should not be the basis of a good reputation for reporting the news. Not paraphrasing correctly or outright lying are characteristics of bad reputations. Not getting the job done shouldn’t be considered outstanding leadership. Too many people have their heads on backwards and get everything wrong.
Come on now, Janet Cooke had a sterling reputation when she won the Pulitzer for that anonymously sourced baby addict story. Not so much when she returned it after her story fell apart for the fraud it was. Jayson Blair obviously got the hint and lied his way through several articles before being caught. The list goes on. It’s just never remembered by the newspapers.
Add to it the icon of the left Chomsky who while ⅓-½ of the Cambodian population was being killed he was telling us how good things were. Alternatively add the Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty for his reports on Stalin’s Russia where he denied the widespread famine in Ukraine. That however, was understandable. Too much Russian caviar along with other delights.
In a recent article, Napolitano said, “…in his plea negotiations with Mueller, Flynn revealed why he discussed sanctions with Kislyak — because the pre-presidential Trump asked him to do so. An honest revelation by Trump could have negated Flynn’s prosecution. But the revelation never came.”
This is completely untrue. There was no crime in the phone call, and Flynn was never charged with anything that concerned the legality of the conversation; he was charged with LYING to the FBI about the subject of the conversation–in other words, perjury. Trump could not have gotten him out of that with ‘an honest revelation,’ and Napolitano has to know that. And if he will tell one lie about Trump, I see no reason to assume that he hasn’t told others. So…I can easily see why Trump is down on him.
https://www.creators.com/read/judge-napolitano/04/19/did-the-president-obstruct-justice
Flynn had no reason to lie about the subject of his phone call with Kislyak other than to conceal Trump’s directive to Flynn to call Kislyak and ask Russia not to retaliate for the election interference sanctions. Can you propose some other motive for Flynn’s lie besides concealing Trump’s directives to Flynn? I can’t. Flynn’s lie makes no sense unless Trump directed Flynn to keep the reason for his phone call with Kislyak secret.
Your crystal ball must be cloudy, just like Napolitano’s.
Since there is discussion about Flynn and where the underlying problems lay I thought this would be of interest:
A short blurb for those that don’t want to read the whole thing. One has to worry about any skullduggery going on in our intelligence community and any politicalization that may have occurred. Threatened audits add to the drama.
“This was undoubtedly because the intelligence community didn’t like Flynn, who had changed the way intelligence was collected and analyzed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, taking it away from Washington military and intel officials and relocating it in theater. His methods worked well, but they greatly irritated the Washington-based intelligence crowd. When Flynn was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), it became known that he intended to audit decades of covert budgets, checking to see if the funding, especially for CIA, actually went to the intended recipients for the approved missions. If you ask me, the campaign against Flynn that so surprised Byron York is best explained by the intel community’s eagerness to lock him out of their system. It was reinforced when Flynn criticized Obama’s Afghanistan policy in sworn testimony to Congress.”
The story gets more interesting.
The Operation Against General Flynn Started Long Before The Election
President Trump will hopefully do the right thing soon.
April 25, 2019
Michael Ledeen
Byron York seems baffled by the discovery in the Mueller report that the FBI was after General Michael Flynn long before the intercepts of his telephone conversations with Russian officials during the post-2016 election transition. By that time, Obama Administration higher-ups in the intelligence community were warning Trump that Flynn had suspicious intimate contacts with the Russians, possibly in violation of the Logan Act. As Byron writes:
Mueller strongly suggests something else was up. Obama administration intelligence officials “were surprised by Russia’s decision not to retaliate in response to the sanctions,” the report said. “When analyzing Russia’s response, they became aware of Flynn’s discussion of sanctions with Kislyak. Previously, the FBI had opened an investigation of Flynn based on his relationship with the Russian government. Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak became a key component of that investigation.
Mueller attributed the information, which is on page 26 of Volume II of the report, to interviews with former Justice Department official Mary McCord, who was deeply involved in the Flynn case, and fired FBI Director James Comey.
The FBI investigation of General Flynn goes back several years, perhaps as far back as 2015. This was undoubtedly because the intelligence community didn’t like Flynn, who had changed the way intelligence was collected and analyzed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, taking it away from Washington military and intel officials and relocating it in theater. His methods worked well, but they greatly irritated the Washington-based intelligence crowd. When Flynn was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), it became known that he intended to audit decades of covert budgets, checking to see if the funding, especially for CIA, actually went to the intended recipients for the approved missions. If you ask me, the campaign against Flynn that so surprised Byron York is best explained by the intel community’s eagerness to lock him out of their system. It was reinforced when Flynn criticized Obama’s Afghanistan policy in sworn testimony to Congress.
I suspect that if there is ever a proper inquiry into the operation, we’ll find that the CIA and FBI placed trusted informers inside Flynn’s offices at DIA. It was clearly very important to them, as we see when Comey overrode his own officers to push the claim that Flynn had misled them.
Still earlier, the intelligence community invented a romantic relationship between Flynn and Russian historian Svetlana Lokhova. This was one of the false tales that came to us courtesy of British intelligence, most famously the Steele Dossier, and undoubtedly involved the CIA.
When Flynn became Trump’s favorite national security adviser, it became even more urgent for the Dark State to take him out. Having already organized the operation even before Trump became the Republican nominee, it was a relatively simple task to expand it, and as we know the FBI trapped him, as they had with Scooter Libby and others.
Full credit goes to Byron York for spotting the confirmation of the long-standing anti-Flynn operation, and for asking what it was all about. I believe I have written about the operation more than half a dozen times, but I never expected it to be documented in Mueller’s report. I hope it will be more fully explored when Mueller is questioned.
I also hope that President Trump will soon do the right thing, and pardon General Flynn. The government conjured a phony case against him. Now it’s time to turn him loose. Finally.
you ever been under investigation? or have you spent your entire life in blessed obscurity?
it makes people nervous and they say dumb stuff. that’s a pretty normal reaction even for a general.
yes, flynn should have been honest but it was what we call “pressure” and he fumbled.
that was for Late For Dinner. Late, because slow.
You might say that Flynn lied to cover up for Trump, although I do think there are other reasons why he might have done so. The are irrelevant to my point, however, which was that Napolitano lied when he said that Trump could have “negated Flynn’s prosecution” simply by telling the truth. He could not have done so once Flynn lied to the FBI; by definition, lying to them is perjury, and makes one guilty of a felony.
by definition, lying to them is perjury, and makes one guilty of a felony.
No. Perjury requires you swear falsely. In New York law, offenses allied to perjury require you affix your signature to written instruments to which a jurat is ordinarily affixed. Also, only false statements in oral testimony are felonies.
Filing criminal charges against people for misleading law enforcement is an oddity of federal law. It’s particularly troublesome given that the FBI does not record interviews, something bog standard in law enforcement today. (And, while we’re at it, the FBI agents who interviewed him didn’t think he’d lied).
Keep it in your mind that the FBI and CIA didn’t like Flynn when Flynn was head of the DIA. They were investigating him long Before Trump came down the escalator. It seems they didn’t like the fact he was looking into the archives and books to make sure things being done were correct.
Federal Judge Damon Keith, who authored landmark rulings on civil …
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/04/28/federal-judge-damon-keith-who-authored-landmark-rulings-civil-liberties-dies-96/1848658002/
15 hours ago … Federal Judge Damon Keith, who authored landmark rulings on civil liberties, dies at 96. Oralandar Brand-Williams, The Detroit News …
Excerpted from the article linked above:
“His whole body of work as a jurist is inspiring to anybody,” said Chief Judge Denise Page Hood of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Michigan.
[edit]
In 2002, Keith rebuked the George W. Bush White House in a post-Sept. 11 decision ordering that “special interest” hearings in deportation cases be open to the public. Before the ruling, some 700 deportation cases had been heard behind closed doors, according to the federal government.
“The wiretap case can be seen as one of the first real cases involving things that need to be transparent to the extent that they can be,” Hood said, citing a famous quote from one of Keith’s rulings: “Democracies die behind closed doors.”
[repeated for emphasis]
“Democracies die behind closed doors.”
Also excerpted from the article linked above about Judge Damon Keith:
Keith, who received his law degree from Howard in 1949, recalled the advice he received from [Thurgood] Marshall, who went on to become the first African American on the nation’s highest court.
“He told us at Howard’s law school that ‘equal justice under law,’ those four words etched in the Supreme Court, were written by white men, and when you leave this law school as lawyers, make the country live up to it … those words ‘equal justice under law,'” Keith told The News in 2017. “Voting rights are the most important constitutional rights in the country, and men and women died for that precious right.”
another lifetime tenure judge gets the ultimate impeachment, that of the grim reaper. this one got a lot of extra time one the bench of life.
oh, that’s the guy that helped force integration on a democratic majority that never voted for it. oh, sad, cry cry, etc
And Detroit, how does it look today after the blessings of so many decades of desegregation? Hmm, hard to force people to live where they don’t want to live, isnt it?
@POTUS walked on his own crank with golf shoes. He ought to give up Tweeting and stick to what he does well – rallies.
Never have liked the Napster. He’s such a preening peacock. I’m just a Texas housewife but, I swear, he has said things pertaining to the law that even I knew were not correct. He’s terminally dumb.
I believe Pres. Trump’s version of why Nappy isn’t happy. Trump is that type of person that gets into trouble, not by making-up stuff, but by telling things that most people wouldn’t tell, even though they’re true. Like a character in an Agatha Christie story.
Never like him, Hannity or Ingraham. Pirro seems willing to help out but she’s too emotionally verbose for me.
Ingraham and Hannity have that blue collar heritage thing that, in my opinion, instructs some people, not all, to approach other people in “street fighter” mode.
I swear David can’t watch Laura without yelling ” let your guests speak, dammit!” and he usually won’t watch Hannity for that reason: constantly interrupting.
Pirro is Lebanese so I’m sure she probably excels at some of our favorite cuisine!
But, for Laura I cut alot of slack because she is a cancer survivor, was never handed anything, has adopted a Central Amc girl and two (?) Russian/Ukraine kids and is single. She seems extremely bright and clerked for Clarence Thomas, who may not be an intellectual giant, but seems like a really nice guy. Have you read about his early years as dirt poor, speaking gullah (?) only? Fascinating.
Cindy:
Tell David that comment of his about Laura is in stereo.
LOL will do, mes!
Cindy B.,
The legal analysts at ABC…Pierre Thomas and Dan Abrams…are both very good.
They don’t seem to have regularly scheduled appearances, but they appear frequently in segments of the ABC morning and evening news.
Tom…that’s kind of you to let me know. I remember Dan Abrams from the OJ saga. Dan is also a czncer survivor.
I usually don’t watch the major alphabetics (ABC, NBC, CBS) but I appreciate the heads up.
Wonder what happened to Greta? She seemed to be one of the honest ones.
Did you know her father and that nut Joe McCarthy were law partners at one time?. McCarthy even lived with her family at some point in Appleton, Wi. Can you imagine?!
After Greta left Fox she went to MSNBC for a while. She didn’t bring the ratings they hoped for so they let her go. She’s working at Gray Television now which I’ve never heard of. It’s a tv station that was started in 1946 and is in small to medium sized cities, mostly in the south it looks like. They’re based in GA. I always liked Greta.
Susan…Thanks for the info! She seemed to always have that MidWest honesty about her.
Except I never understood what the deal was with all the plastic surgery.
That was the only disappointing thing to me.
She was definitely the best of all the OJ analysts/attorneys who were on TV back then… IMO.
“I always liked Greta.”
She and her husband are both Scientologists, AFAIK and FWIW.
Anonymous…….you lost me after Scientologists.
She loves her dogs and treats them well.
Ingraham and Hannity have that blue collar heritage thing that,
Laura Ingraham’s father had a college degree and a series of common-and-garden middle-class employments (purchasing agent, retail trade, forestry). Her paternal-side grandfather sold securities and insurance for a living. Her maternal-side grandfather was an immigrant factory worker. (He and his wife had both died by the time LI and her brothers were of an age to remember anything).
Ingraham herself is a graduate of Dartmouth and the University of Virginia Law School. Two of her brothers are schoolteachers and one is an engineer.
(She’s estranged from one brother, who has taken to issuing anathemas against her on Twitter; he also claims his father – a Navy veteran who served in the Pacific theatre, who lived to be nearly 90, and who had just three employers between the ages of 25 and 65 – was an ‘abusive alcoholic’ and a ‘Nazi sympathizer’ ).
Correction. Her oldest brother is an accountant.
absurd, my pet,
Yes, thank you, I know her family pedigree….But, the only time she mentions family on tv is to say that her mother was a waitress.
IMO, that is the part of her heritage of which she is most proud….and I believe the part that had the most profound affect on her. That is the blue collar thing to which I refer. And as a 5 star Marriott, D.C. waitress myself, briefly, in 1971, who wore a starched white uniform, with white collar, and cap, I did notice that most of the other girls presenting London Broils on platters were like me……average intellect… not scholars.
Yes, she’s smart. You don’t get to clerk for the Supremes unless you are extremely bright. At least that’s what the attorney with whom I’m currently sleeping tells me.
Also, Laura was raised Baptist!!! (like me)
So, your point, monsieur? 🤔
1. I think the overwhelming majority of people have had disagreeable service or industrial jobs at one point or another in their life. Waitressing included.
2. Not sure what the situation was 50 years ago when the Ingrahams sibs were at the mid-point of their upbringing, but as we speak the exurb of Hartford in which they grew up has a per capita income just shy of 2x the national mean.
absurd X5 ( I see you’ve moved up from X3)
Thank you. At Thefamouspeople.com, Laura’s bio says she was raised in a ” humble middle-class family”
That’s what she has indicated on her tv show…..along with talking about her mother’s waitressing.
I have to say I have always thought that you are British. You throw in true English expressions, words sometimes.
Maybe you just watch alot of Acorn and Britbox? And my guess is that your mother was never a waitress. 😊
Her family was middle class, not working class. Just not fancy middle class. I’m wagering she’s comparing herself to classmates at Dartmouth and UVa, who would have been fancy middle class (or patrician).
Thank you, absurd.
She is pretty until she turns up her testosterone heavy oversized chin. She should keep her face aimed downwards.
She worked at Skadden Arps Meager and Flom in NYC and nobody should be surprised that she’s a rather coarse and aggressive personality.I hear that is required for all who row at their oars.
Personally I tried to watch her twice and both times was too bored to linger.
Lordy, Mr. Kurtz! Is that the actual name of the firm?? LOL… Sounds like trying to say something after a root canal while your mouth is still numb!
it is a belligerent corporate takeover firm of some reknown. or ill repute. however successful it has become.
read outliers by gladwell which profiled the virtues of its founder Joe Flom.
Mr. Kurtz…..That’s interesting. Thanks!
“Clarence Thomas, who may not be an intellectual giant”
Cindy, the left pushes the view that Thomas is not intellectually gifted. I’m no expert in making such a determination but he seems to me to be more consistent on the Constitution and himself than many others on the court. I think the left’s continuous sliming of Thomas makes many think that he isn’t an intellectual heavy weight when he might be one of the most weighty of all on the court.
You just need to read his opinions to realize he’s not an intellectual giant.
I suppose you have read his opinions, right? Why not tell us 5 of the opinions that demonstrate a lack of intellectual ability along with a reason. The problem with some is they use ideology rather than analysis to determine the intellectual abilities of others. Is that the case with your analysis? I don’t accuse you, but some assume that because he is black his intellect has to be inferior, but that is definitely not the case.
Allan……..you are so correct about the Left.
I have always liked Justice Thomas. Even when I was a Democrat, I thought Anita Hill was one messed up broad.
She FOLLOWED him to another job, after saying she had been harrassed by him at the first job? I loathe women like that.
Anyway, I like and respect him immensely.
Cindy:
I find decades old allegations to be very troubling, unless the victim was a child at the time. Children just are not equipped to know how to handle an assault.
However, I expect an adult woman to be responsible. Each choice she makes is an action with a consequence. Hypothetically, if a woman is assaulted, for example, she may choose to report it immediately to the police. Evidence and recollection will be fresh. Or she could wait a few days and report it. Evidence will be lost, but there still might be security camera footage to track her demeanor when she left a location, for example. Or she could say nothing. If she does this last, then she has voluntarily given up the ability to prove her case. That was her choice, and that is her consequence. For a woman to come out, years later, and make an accusation that cannot be proven is patently unjust. She wants it both ways. She didn’t want to go through the problems of a criminal investigation and trial, but yet she expects to be believed many years later, when evidence and witness recollection are lost. It’s irresponsible. It’s not fair to all participants. It puts people into the position where it’s impossible to prove anything, but they might feel uncomfortable negating her accusation. The only reason they were able to nail serial rapist Bill Cosby was that there were so many similar stories, settlements, and he even admitted to drugging women.
In the same way, I also disagree with making allegations of sexual harassment, a far lesser issue than assault, years later. I expect women to either handle harassment at the time, or let it go. It is not just to bring up allegations many years later, without proof, and expect to be believed.
Maureen O’Hara was famous for fighting back against the casting couch expectations of producers. She took her fight to the papers when producers labeled her “difficult” and “cold” for not going along to get along. If more Hollywood women had her backbone, then the Harvey Weinstein’s of that world would have been set down, hard, a long time ago.
Exactly, Karen! Good points, all.
You forgot devoted daughter.
Now Pirro I like.
https://www.google.com/search?q=jeanine+pirro+hot&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=FajBK_djFro0WM%253A%252CuvsuZrWLW1l7TM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kQtE9BybEGv8qrPQBFJrm4XBAT9jA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiRteHEyvXhAhUBGKwKHfycCssQ9QEwAXoECAkQBg#imgrc=qIG-mlZYDr5P_M:&vet=1
NIce suits and slicked back hair, and self promoting. He doesn’t disappoint in the Italian American stereotypes department, does he? Too taken with his own image. Always turned me off even when i agreed with him
Recently Judge Nap’s analysis has veered towards emotional vehemance in lieu of fair and balanced legal evaluation. This has been especially true after the Mueller report clearly exonerated Pres. Trump or any Trump official of any treasonous behavior. However, Judge Nap began stating his moral analysis about the President instead of balanced legal analysis, which made him seem like a shill for Schiff, Schumer, et al. Even prior to that, Judge Nap often presented “what if'” scenarios as if they were factual which started to reveal his prejudice … but his animus has become much more obvious in the last 4-6 weeks. Sorry but the President has this one right.
Dershowitz tales Nappy apart with a legal rather than a layman’s understanding of obstruction of justice. Simply put, the predicate act must be illegal in itself before you can entertain obstruction of justice resulting therefrom. Art II permits the President to hire and fire any Executive Department employee. Nappy knows better but he’s angry over not being able to measure the drapes at the SCOTUS.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/28/dershowitz_napolitano_is_wrong_about_obstruction_of_justice_not_even_a_close_case.html
Dersh, an obnoxious fellow, but so smart it hurts. I admire his mind and experience, more and more
Mr. Kurtz…….I agree…….and that’s why I took notice when he said that Ted Cruz was the most brilliant law student he ever taught.
If Cruz’ demeanor and delivery didn’t parrot his Baptist preacher father so much, he might have beaten Trump in primaries.
But unless you’re an evangelical yourself, that bible thumping delivery style, which includes dramatic pauses snd head turns, is such a turn off. IMO.
Baptists are big in Texas I am sure it plays well there.
I”m not an evangelical but I like that style.
Ted has given some great speeches.
Mr. Kurtz…….So many former Baptists in Texas have now become either Episcopalians or evangelical non-denominationals, the latter having left traditional Baptist doctrine because of it being too liberal for them. Do not adjust your set……you read that correctly! Baptists were too liberal for this group, so they have become full frontal bible thumpin, arm wavin’ praise the lorders…..not affiliated with any particular denomination.
Ted’s delivery is a little too slick for alot of moderate to liberal Baptists, but they agree with him politically..That’s the group with which I have more in common.
As a knuckle dragging, hairy, gun toting old white guy, I am constitutionally at ease with the Bible thumpers, but my educational level prevents me from believing the world was created 4 thousand years ago.
I’m also a Catholic now and but even before when I was a younger Protestant, I heard them calling the Catholic Church the whore of Babylon which I always thought was just ill informed and ridiculous.
Texas is a fun place, you meet all kinds there.
Mr. Kurtz……..Laura Ingrsham was Baptist, also, and converted to Catholic.
But I’ll say this about the Bible thumpers in the big box churches out on the highway: They are incredibly racially
diverse! It’s impressive.
I did follow Napolitano until he started talking nonsense- this explains his behavior.
Once he stopped shilling for tRump he is of no use to you, got it.
Nonsense? That’s ridiculous. I know it causes certain heads to explode when someone at FOX tells the truth.
I guess we will never know if your assertion is true.