Judge Napolitano: If judge won't dismiss Michael Flynn case, Trump should pardon him
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Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano reacted with outrage on Thursday to FBI documents that show officials discussed their motivations for interviewing Michael Flynn in the White House in January 2017 — and openly questioned if their "goal" was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."
Napolitano told “Fox & Friends” that any person who believes that the “laws should be applied fairly should be utterly scandalized and outraged” by the FBI’s scheme to set up the then-national security adviser to be prosecuted.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Whether they like him or not, whether he’s guilty or not, the goal must be justice, but they actually plotted to bring him in a trap,” Napolitano told “Fox & Friends.”
“[The Justice Department] should renounce and denounce this behavior, it should look General Flynn in the eyes and apologize to him, it should ask the judge to vacate the guilty plea, it should ask the judge to dismiss the indictment. If all of that doesn’t happen, then the president should pardon General Flynn within the next day or so because this type of behavior simply can’t be allowed in America.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The handwritten notes -- written by the FBI's former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap after a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Fox News is told -- further suggested that agents planned in the alternative to get Flynn "to admit to breaking the Logan Act" when he spoke to then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.
The Logan Act is an obscure statute that has never been used in a criminal prosecution; enacted in 1799 in an era before telephones, it was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad.
"What is our goal?" one of the notes read. "Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ + have them decide," another note read. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley called the document's implications "chilling."
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Napolitano emphasized that Flynn has amassed nearly $6 million in legal bills since the government began its case against him, questioning the motivation behind the FBI's efforts.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"This is part of a plot to impair the presidency of Donald Trump before he was even inaugurated," he argued.
Fox News Gregg Re contributed to this report.