Fox & Friends co-hosts saddened as Andrew Napolitano debunks their impeachment conspiracy theories
Published
Citation From the November 21, 2019, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
BRIAN KILMEADE (FOX & FRIENDS CO-HOST): Dramatic testimony from Ambassador Gordon Sondland -- we got the written text and we realized it was going to be big -- saying that President Trump told him, among one of the many things he said, was he wanted no quid pro quo.
...
AINSLEY EARHARDT (FOX & FRIENDS CO-HOST): The president says he's always in a good mood and he says it's all over. So do Democrats still have a case?
STEVE DOOCY (FOX & FRIENDS CO-HOST): Here with perspective, Fox News senior judicial analyst and host of Liberty File on Fox Nation, Judge Andrew Napolitano. OK, so, judge, he was the Democrats' big witness and he made it very clear what the president told him.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO (FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST): I think the Democrats do still have a case. One would expect the president, in September, after the whistleblower's allegations came out, after the president was accused of a quid pro quo, to say "no quid pro quo." Here we go with the Latin again.
But it is clear from what Ambassador Sondland testified yesterday that there was an understanding that the president wanted some things from the Ukrainians.
DOOCY: He said -- but, judge, he said he presumed.
NAPOLITANO: There's a lot of evidence in which you can base the presumption.
DOOCY: But, he didn't hear the president say it. He said, "I presume."
NAPOLITANO: Correct. Correct. But he also said Mike Pompeo knew it. Mike Pence --
KILMEADE: Everyone. He said Perry.
NAPOLITANO: -- Rick Perry knew it. Mick Mulvaney knew it. Now, when allegations like that are made, and the committee subpoenas those people, and they don't show, for whatever reason, the committee can infer that their testimony would be consistent with the ambassador's.
DOOCY: So that's an article of impeachment?
NAPOLITANO: Yes. So the ambassador is not a never Trumper. He is not a Democrat. He's not somebody wanting to disrupt. This is the guy who's given a million dollars to the Republican Party and is the most important Trump-nominated ambassador in Europe. And he's saying this is what happened. The president wanted an announcement about Burisma, he didn't care if there was an investigation. He just wanted the announcement so he could use it. And we know that the money was held up for 55 days. The president didn't tell me that, because the president doesn't say those things.
DOOCY: Talk to Rudy.
NAPOLITANO: He communicates through Rudy. Because the president knows from years when he did that here -- communicate through the lawyer -- that there is no attorney-client privilege in impeachment. And that's why Rudy won't testify.
KILMEADE: What's to be worried about if you are the president or you're Adam Schiff with Fiona Hill today?
NAPOLITANO: Again, how many people in the -- permanent people in the administration knew about it? Like last night, we learned from a deputy assistant Secretary of Defense that the Ukrainians began asking "what's the holdup?" the day of -- the day of the conversation with President Zelensky. That's an entirely different narrative than the one the president's people have been giving us for the past two months.
KILMEADE: But Zelensky and the foreign minister both said they didn't know it was held up.
DOOCY: Could just be a coincidence that it happened that day. Judge, thank you very much.
EARHARDT: Thank you, judge.
NAPOLITANO: I think more is to come.
DOOCY: I think you're probably right.