Fox News senior legal analyst Andrew Napolitano has warned Republicans against trying to “smear the witnesses being interrogated” by Congress, saying Democrats are acting in line with House rules.
Napolitano, in a video for “Judge Napolitano’s Chambers” on Wednesday, said that Republicans’ “arguments are to smear the witnesses being interrogated in secret and to smear the process.”
He added, “A group of Republicans were unhappy with hearings being held behind closed doors, even though those hearings are perfectly consistent with House rules that were written by Republicans when they controlled the House.”
Napolitano went on to bash President Donald Trump for complaining about the hearings despite admitting to withholding aid to Ukraine and asking the country’s president to investigate his political opponent as a favor.
“The proofs have been admitted to by the president,” he said. “He had the phone call with the president of Ukraine, he did hold up nearly $400 million in aid … they desperately need the military equipment the president held up until the Ukrainian president could do a favor for him, and the favor was to investigate an American citizen who happened to be the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to oppose President Trump’s re-election. None of that is in dispute.
“The president is not going to be prosecuted on the basis of any secret evidence, the House rules prohibit that,” Napolitano said, adding that the House will vote on whether to publicize the evidence “and then the president’s people will have to address this on the merits, not the process.”
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