ANDREW NAPOLITANO (FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST): This must be an act of political corruption, not corruption where somebody was paid to do it, but corruption where favors were passed. I don't know that Michelle Obama or her chief of staff caused this to happen, and there's actually nothing wrong with suggesting to a prosecutor that a defendant should be allowed a deferred prosecution. What is wrong here is what the prosecutor did, to dismiss the charges as if there is no basis to prosecute, and then to allow an expungement of the record. Do you know what an expungement means? He can now legally answer under oath he was never indicted, he was never charged, and he was never arrested. That's how effective the expungement statute is. 

STUART VARNEY (HOST): OK, now that's the expungement of his record? 

NAPOLITANO: Correct.

VARNEY: What about the sealing of the court case records, can they be unsealed? 

NAPOLITANO: Yes they can be unsealed if a judge's mind were to be changed, but right now everything is sealed. So if reasons were given to the court to justify this most unorthodox decision to dismiss these charges, by the way they're dismissed forever. They cannot be reconstituted. He cannot be re-indicted. That's the end of it.

VARNEY: Really?

NAPOLITANO: The only way he can ever be prosecuted, and I think he may have bought this prosecution if you know what I mean, triggered it himself, is by the federal government. Because there's a potential federal crime here, which is the use of the mails for mailing a fraudulent instrument, the so-called threatening letter which he sent to himself at Fox.

VARNEY: It's just appalling, judge. 

NAPOLITANO: It is.

VARNEY: I mean, the judicial system has been raped. 

NAPOLITANO: This is a system where the judges are popularly elected and the prosecutors are popularly elected. Who dismisses a criminal case, and then, “Oh by the way. that bail that I posted? You can keep it.” This is unheard of. Even though I'm not being punished, I'll do all these hours of community service for you. This is some sort of a hybrid of some sort of a deal. The government wants to deny it's a deal, because the government after this happened said, “We think he is guilty and we can prove the case.” Well if you think he's guilty, you can prove the case, why did you dismiss it?

VARNEY: I'm just appalled by this whole thing.

Previously:

Tucker Carlson: “It looks to us” that Smollett's charges were dropped because he knows the Obamas and Kamala Harris 

Fox anchor: “The first thing you say” when pulled over by the police should be “I'm sorry for wasting your time”

Tucker Carlson: “There aren't that many hate crimes occurring in the country ... so they have to make them up”