Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano explained Thursday how President Donald Trump legally could be impeached again, hours after slamming the Senate’s Wednesday acquittal vote in an op-ed.
Napolitano called out Senate Republicans for voting against additional witness testimony and added that the president is “clearly guilty” of the impeachment charges in an op-ed. He added to these comments on Fox & Friends Thursday morning, explaining how there’s no double jeopardy, meaning Democrats could try and “impeach him again if they want.”
“Because there is no double jeopardy protection,” Napolitano said after bringing up the possibility committees continuing to discuss former National Security Advisor John Bolton being subpoenaed.
“Stated differently, they could impeach him again if they want – notwithstanding the political fallout which I think would be horrific – for the exact same offense with the exact same evidence and perhaps more evidence.”
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Napolitano added that he was “sorry to tell the president at this hour of the morning after his triumph yesterday,” adding that it’s simply “the law.”
Hours early, Napolitano’s op-ed, published by Fox News, hit back hard at the Senate GOP’s unwillingness to hear witnesses. He wrote that the decision turned the impeachment trial “into a steamroller of political power.”
“The evidence that Trump did this is overwhelming and beyond a reasonable doubt, and no one with firsthand knowledge denied it,” Napolitano wrote. “Numerous government officials recounted that the presidential leverage of $391 million in U.S. assistance for a personal political favor did occur and the government’s own watchdog concluded that it was indisputably unlawful.”
The Fox News advisor ended his op-ed by suggesting the president manipulated senators into voting against witnesses, writing Trump’s acquittal was a “legal assault on the Constitution.” (RELATED: Andrew Napolitano Breaks Down How Trump Can Overcome Congressional Investigations)
“Trump will luxuriate in his victory,” according to Napolitano. “But the personal victory for him is a legal assault on the Constitution. The president has taken an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Instead, he has trashed it. How?”
“By manipulating Senate Republicans to bar firsthand evidence and keep it from senatorial and public scrutiny, Trump and his Senate collaborators have insulated him and future presidents from the moral and constitutional truism that no president is above the law. Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling.”