Judge Andrew Napolitano returned to Fox News Channel on Wednesday and stood by his report that resulted in President Trump accusing former President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower.
Napolitano told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer that he stands by his statement on Obama spying Trump, adding “the sources stand by it.”
The L.A Times reported last week that Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge who has worked as a commentator on Fox-owned networks for more than a decade, would not appear on the network anytime soon. Nine days later, Napolitano was not only back, but stood by his original report.
“The American public needs to know more about this rather than less because a lot of the government surveillance authorities will expire in the Fall and there’ll be a great debate on how much authority we want the government to have to surveil us, and the more the American public knows the more informed their and Congress’s decisions will be,” Napolitano said. “I think a lot more is going to come.”
Earlier this month, Trump tweeted unsubstantiated claims that Obama had illegally wiretapped Trump Tower before last fall’s election. A Senate Intelligence Committee recently declared there is no evidence to support Trump’s claim.
During a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on March 17, Trump deflected a question about his tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower by blaming Napolitano’s report.
“We said nothing,” Trump said when a German reporter asked about his claim. “All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind, who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox.”
He continued: “You shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox.”
Trump blamed Fox News because Napolitano went on “Fox & Friends” a few weeks ago and said that “three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command” to spy on Trump during last year’s election.
Fox News host Shepard Smith made the following statement shortly after Trump’s comments during the press conference with Merkel: “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary. 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.”
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