By Derek
Hawkins
March 21, 2017
Fox News has reportedly pulled legal analyst
Andrew Napolitano from the air over his baseless claim, repeated by President
Trump, that British intelligence officials spied on Trump at the request of
President Barack Obama.
Napolitano, a regular face on Fox News, has not
appeared on the network since Thursday and will not be a guest in the near
future, the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press reported Monday, citing anonymous
individuals.
A Fox News spokeswoman did not immediately
respond to a message seeking comment Monday night. The Dow Jones Newswire also reported the story,
along with speculation that Napolitano wouldn’t be gone too long from Fox. The
longtime commentator and purveyor of conspiracy theories has a significant
following.
The move would distance Fox News from
allegations that British officials, as well as National Security Agency
Director Michael S. Rogers, have denounced as false. In tweets earlier this month, Trump accused Obama
of wiretapping Trump Tower in what he called a “Nixon/Watergate” plot.
Pressed for details, the Trump administration has
produced no evidence to support the allegations, citing only news reports from
conservative media. On Monday, FBI Director James B. Comey testified before Congress that there was
“no information” indicating that Obama ordered surveillance of Trump Tower
during the election. Rogers, asked in the same hearing whether he agreed that
the allegation about British intelligence was “nonsense,” responded “yes.”
In a March 14 appearance on “Fox and Friends,”
Napolitano, who calls himself “Judge Napolitano” because he was once a New
Jersey Superior Court judge, claimed he had spoken to three “intelligence
sources” who said Obama “went outside the chain of command” to spy on Trump.
Instead of using U.S. intelligence services, Napolitano said, Obama used
Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, to ensure there
were “no American fingerprints on this.”
Napolitano doubled down on his claims in a column
for Fox News, writing that “by bypassing all
American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer cited Napolitano’s comments in a
press briefing Thursday. Asked whether Trump would stand by his unproven
wiretapping allegations, Spicer quoted directly from the Fox News transcript.
“All we’re doing is literally reading off what
other stations and people have reported,” Spicer said. “We’re not casting
judgment on that.”
In response, GCHQ, usually silent on intelligence
matters, sharply denied that it had engaged in any of the activities described
by Napolitano.
“Recent allegations made by media commentator
Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’
against the then President Elect are nonsense,” the agency said in a statement
Thursday. “They are utterly
ridiculous and should be ignored.”
But that did not stop Trump from bringing them up
again. In a news conference Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
Trump pointed to Napolitano’s appearance on Fox News when asked to defend
his wiretapping claims, as The Washington Post reported.
“All we did was quote a certain very talented
legal mind who was the one responsible for that on television,” he said. “I
didn’t make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented
lawyer on Fox.”
“So you shouldn’t be talking to me,” Trump added,
“you should be talking to Fox.”
At that point, Fox News tried to distance itself
from Napolitano’s commentary, with anchor Shepard Smith saying the network
could not confirm what Napolitano had said on “Fox and Friends.”
“Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that
the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way.
Full stop,” Shepard said on air.
The British government, meanwhile, said Friday
that the White House had promised to stop suggesting that British
intelligence services had spied on Trump, as The Post reported. A spokesman for British Prime
Minister Theresa May said in a news conference: “We have received assurances
from the White House that these allegations would not be repeated.”
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