Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano predicted the Ukraine controversy could be the end of former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, but argued it should not overshadow President Trump’s actions in the matter.
“This is probably the end of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Napolitano told Fox Business Network on Monday. “But it doesn’t diminish one iota what the current president is doing … If true, this is an act of corruption.”
“I think this is the most serious charge against the president, far more serious than what Bob Mueller dug or dragged up against him,” Napolitano said, referring to the special counsel’s nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump has acknowledged that he discussed Biden, his potential 2020 opponent, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July phone call. He reportedly urged Zelensky eight times to help his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on an investigation into Biden’s son Hunter who was employed by a Ukrainian natural gas company at the same time that the elder Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine did not fire its top prosecutor, who had been accused of corruption and was said to be investigating the gas company.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump asked his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to put nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine days before the phone call.
“If there was a quid pro quo — it does appear as though a quarter of a billion dollars in defensive weaponry was held back for a period of time while these eight conversations were going on between the president,” Napolitano said.
“So if you are the President of the United States and you are making a conversation that you know your intelligence community is listening to,” he continued, “of course you’re not going to articulate a quid pro quo. You’ll just make the quid pro quo happen.”
