Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said Thursday on “Fox & Friends” that Democrats have a case for impeaching President Trump after U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s congressional testimony.
“One would expect the president, in September, after the whistleblower’s allegations came out, after the president was accused of a quid pro quo, to say ‘no quid pro quo.’ Here we go with the Latin again,” Napolitano said. “But it is clear from what Ambassador Sondland testified yesterday that there was an understanding that the president wanted some things from the Ukrainians.”
Sondland, a Republican mega-donor and Trump’s hand-picked ambassador, delivered explosive testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that linked the president to a politically motivated pressure campaign in Ukraine.
Sondland said that Trump dictated Ukraine policy through his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and that Giuliani was demanding a quid pro quo: No White House visit for Ukraine’s new president until Kyiv agreed to publicly announce investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
The ambassador also testified that he sent an email to then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other Trump officials informing them that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was prepared to announce a probe.
“Rick Perry knew it. Mick Mulvaney knew it,” Napolitano said on the Fox News morning show. “Now, when allegations like that are made, and the committee subpoenas those people, and they don’t show, for whatever reason, the committee can infer that their testimony would be consistent with the ambassador’s.”
Napolitano also defended Sondland, a billionaire hotel magnate, against the president’s attacks.
“So the ambassador is not a never Trumper. He is not a Democrat,” Napolitano said. “He’s not somebody wanting to disrupt. This is the guy who’s given a million dollars to the Republican Party and is the most important Trump-nominated ambassador in Europe. And he’s saying this is what happened.”