Andrew P. Napolitano
Articles by Andrew P. Napolitano
Rudy Giuliani’s hypothetical question deepens Donald Trump’s legal woes
Last weekend, the White House leaked a copy of a letter sent by President Donald Trump's legal team on Jan. 29 to special counsel Robert Mueller. The letter set forth the president's legal strategy, arguing essentially that he is immune from prosecution for any crime. Published June 6, 2018
Rudy Giuliani’s unwarranted attack on the Trump investigation
This past weekend, President Trump and the most visible member of his legal team, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, fired up their campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller. They attacked people at the Department of Justice (DOJ) whom Mr. Trump appointed. They smeared career DOJ lawyers and FBI agents by offering allegations without showing any supporting evidence. And they purported to challenge the legitimacy of Mr. Mueller's office itself. Published May 30, 2018
If Mueller actually has something on Trump, intervention could look like obstruction
This past weekend, President Trump suggested that his presidential campaign may have been the victim of spies or moles who were FBI informants or undercover agents. He demanded an investigation to get to the bottom of the matter. Published May 23, 2018
Supreme Court strikes down the 1992 federal law that banned commercial sports betting
In 1992, Congress passed a statute authored by Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, who was a former Princeton University and New York Knicks basketball superstar, prohibiting the states from authorizing sports betting. At that time, gambling in Atlantic City was flourishing, and notwithstanding one of its own senators' efforts to keep gambling away from competitive sports, the state of New Jersey wanted to duplicate Las Vegas' success with sports betting. Published May 16, 2018
Prosecutors and the rule of law
Late last week, a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., questioned the authority of special counsel Robert Mueller to seek an indictment and pursue the prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort for alleged financial crimes that, according to the indictment, began and ended well before Donald Trump ran for president. Published May 9, 2018
Troublesome questions for President Trump
In a startling revelation earlier this week, The New York Times published what it claims are 40 questions that special counsel Robert Mueller sent to lawyers for President Donald Trump. The questions are apparently a road map of inquiry that Mr. Mueller and his prosecutors and FBI agents plan to put to the president if the president agrees to sit down for an interview with them. Published May 2, 2018
At war and with the separation of powers
A popular way to begin the first day of class in constitutional law in many American law schools is to ask the students what sets the U.S. Constitution apart from all others. Published April 25, 2018
Trump and the attorney-client privilege
A few weeks ago, President Trump was an outwardly happy man because of the utterance of one solitary word from the lips of special counsel Robert Mueller to one of Mr. Trump's lawyers. The word that thrilled the president and his legal team was "subject." Published April 18, 2018
The real threat to Trump
In the midst of worrying about North Korea, Syria and Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives this fall, President Donald Trump is now worrying about a government assault on his own business, which targeted his own lawyer. Published April 11, 2018
What is Robert Mueller looking for?
Robert Mueller is the special counsel appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May 2017 to probe the nature and extent of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. The investigation began in October 2016 under President Barack Obama when the FBI took seriously the boast of Carter Page, one of candidate Donald Trump's foreign policy advisers, that he had worked for the Kremlin. Published April 4, 2018
The meaning of Easter is that if there’s hope for the dead, there’s hope for the living
What is the connection between personal freedom and rising from the dead? Published March 28, 2018
Purpose of the Constitution is to restrain government, FISA has done exactly the opposite
For the past few days, the nation's media and political class have been fixated on the firing of the No. 2 person in the FBI, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Published March 21, 2018
What Stormy Daniels has to say, sordid as it may be, must not be subject to government censorship
When James Madison drafted the First Amendment — "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" -- he made sure to use the article "the" in front of the word "freedom." What seemed normal to him and superfluous to moderns was actually a profound signal that has resonated for 227 years. The signal was that because the freedom of speech existed before the government that was formed to protect it came into existence, it does not have its origins in government. Published March 14, 2018
‘Let him arrest me!’
Late Monday afternoon, we were treated to a series of bizarre interviews on nearly every major cable television channel except Fox when a colorful character named Sam Nunberg, a former personal and political aide to Donald Trump, took to the airwaves to denounce a grand jury subpoena he received compelling the production of documents and live testimony. Published March 7, 2018
When the government disarms in selected zones it increases helplessness
The Ash Wednesday massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, seems to have broken more hearts than similar tragedies that preceded it. It was no more senseless than other American school shootings, but there is something about the innocence and bravery and eloquence of the youthful survivors that has touched the souls of Americans deeply. Published February 28, 2018
Robert Mueller in hot pursuit
Last Friday, a federal grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C., indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian corporations for conspiracy and for using false instruments and computer hacking so as to influence the American presidential election in 2016. The indictment alleges a vast, organized and professional effort, funded by tens of millions of dollars, whereby Russian spies passed themselves off as Americans on the internet, on the telephone and even in person here in the U.S. to sow discord about Hillary Clinton and thereby assist in the election of Donald Trump. Published February 21, 2018
Unchecked government spending has consequences for all
Imagine you open the faucet of your kitchen sink expecting water and instead out comes cash. Now imagine that it comes out at the rate of $1 million a minute. You call your plumber, who thinks you're crazy. To get you off the phone, he opines that it is your sink and therefore must be your money. So you spend it wildly. Then you realize that the money wasn't yours and you owe it back. Published February 14, 2018
A lawful means for foreign surveillance on U.S. soil has ordinary Americans in its sights
We remain embroiled in a debate over the nature and extent of our own government's spying on us. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was enacted in 1978 as a response to the unlawful government spying of the Watergate era, was a lawful means for the government to engage in foreign surveillance on U.S. soil, but it has morphed into unchecked government spying on ordinary Americans. Published February 7, 2018
‘Foreign intelligence surveillance’ has become surveillance of all Americans
I have argued for a few weeks now that House Intelligence Committee members have committed misconduct in office by concealing evidence of spying abuses by the National Security Agency and the FBI. They did this by sitting on a four-page memo that summarizes the abuse of raw intelligence data while Congress was debating a massive expansion of FISA. Published January 31, 2018
Why the House Intelligence Committee must reveal what it knows about NSA and FBI intelligence abuses
During the past three weeks, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law vast new powers for the NSA and the FBI to spy on innocent Americans and selectively to pass on to law enforcement the fruits of that spying. Published January 24, 2018
