Senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano won’t be making televised appearances on Fox News for the time being, according to anonymous sources familiar with the situation who were cited by the Los Angeles Times on Monday.
Napolitano has reportedly been suspended indefinitely, after the controversy surrounding his unsubstantiated claim that President Barack Obama colluded with British intelligence to spy on Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential election.
Napolitano, who appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday, was scrutinized when he claimed that intelligence sources he spoke to alleged Obama “went outside the chain of command” and had requested that British officials spy on Trump.
“They have 24/7 access to the NSA database,” Napolitano claimed on the show. “So by simply having two people go to them saying, ‘President Obama needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump, conversations involving president-elect Trump,’ he’s able to get it, and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”
That claim has since been rejected by British intelligence agency Global Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – as well as other Fox News hosts, including Bill O’Reilly, andShepard Smith. Napolitano’s claims have also been debunked by the US intelligence community.
"Fox News cannot confirm Judge [Andrew] Napolitano's commentary," Smith said on Friday. "Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way. Full stop."
Neither Napolitano nor the network would comment on the situation for The Times on Monday.
