It's probably a good thing that
President Trump was busy at the
United Nations on Tuesday, because the frequent
Fox News viewer wouldn't have liked what he heard during anchor Shep Smith's afternoon show.Smith was joined by Judge Andrew Napolitano, the network's senior judicial analyst. His appearance came shortly before House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced she directed the House to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump, and Smith asked Napolitano about all sorts of scenarios involving Trump and his phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and whether they would be crimes. Trump has admitted he requested Zelensky investigate the son of 2020 presidential candidate and former Vice President
Joe Biden, and Napolitano said that yes, "it is a crime for the president to solicit aid for his campaign from a foreign government."The whistleblower who brought attention to the call went through the proper channels and was deemed credible by the intelligence community's inspector general, but acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire did not pass the complaint along to Congress, as required by law. This was a bad move, Napolitano said, and the "administration is on very, very thin ice, on the grounds on which it blocked it for two reasons." First, the statute says if a complaint is found to be credible and urgent by the inspector general, it shall, not may, be shared with the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate.Also, it was a "cockamamie" ruling from the Department of Justice that Maguire is using to defend his decision not to pass the complaint to
Congress — they are claiming that the president doesn't work for the intelligence community, therefore the complaint is moot. "Moot?" Napolitano said. "The complaint accuses the president of the
United States of bribery, how can that be moot? The Congress has every right under the statute to know about it." Bribery, he continued, is "absolutely an impeachable offense, there's no equivocation. Why do I say that? Because it's stated in the Constitution. The basis for impeachment: treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Watch the video below.