President Donald Trump must take special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation seriously while he's pulling together a legal team, Judge Andrew Napolitano said Monday, calling it "unbelievable" the president has only a few people representing him.
"Bob Mueller has, as I said, 13 federal prosecutors — experienced prosecutors — and 30 FBI agents," Napolitano, Fox News' senior legal analyst, told "America's Newsroom." "The president has one full-time and one part-time lawyer. That's it."
His comments come after The New York Times reported on Sunday that Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing would not be joining the president's special counsel legal team, as it was revealed that their law firm has represented other clients involved in Mueller's probe.
One of those people, former Trump campaign adviser Sam Clovis is a witness who will be testifying against Trump, Napolitano said.
Meanwhile, Trump's lead lawyer in the Russia investigation, John Dowd, resigned last Thursday "because Joe diGenova is going to take the lead," Bill O'Reilly told Newsmax TV last week.
Napolitano said Monday he believes either Trump's team or diGenova should have known about the potential conflict before the reports surfaced that he'd take a role in the president's defense.
On Sunday, Trump ridiculed the idea that he's having difficulty pulling together a legal team, and called reports indicating trouble as a "fake news narrative."
Napolitano on Monday also disagreed with Sen. Lindsey Graham's assessment that a second special counsel is needed to investigate Hillary Clinton and her actions during the election.
"The evidence of her guilt is absolutely overwhelming yet it was never presented to a grand jury," said Graham. "But I disagree on the need for a special counsel ... they basically are free agents unanswerable to the people, separated from the hierarchy of the Justice Department. They do what they want."
A special counsel is appointed when there is a conflict of interest between the attorney general and the investigation's target, but with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the potential targets in a Clinton investigation, there is no conflict, he explained.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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