Tag: Judge Andrew Napolitano

Who Answers for Government Lies?

Guest Post by Andrew Napolitano

Here is a quick pop quiz. What happens if we lie to the government? What happens if the government lies to us? Does it matter who does the lying?

Last year, the Obama administration negotiated an agreement with the government of Iran permitting Iran to obtain certain materials for the construction of nuclear facilities. It also permitted the release of tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets that had been held in U.S. banks and that the courts had frozen, and it lifted trade sanctions. In exchange, certain inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities can occur under certain circumstances.

During the course of the negotiations, many critics made many allegations about whether the Obama administration was telling the truth to Congress and to the American people.

Was there a secret side deal? The administration said no. Were we really negotiating with moderates in the Iranian government, as opposed to the hard-liners depicted in the American media? The administration said yes. Can U.N. or U.S. inspectors examine Iranian nuclear facilities without notice and at any time? The administration said yes.

It appears that this deal is an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and whatever faction he believes is running the government of Iran. That means that it will expire if not renewed at noon on Jan. 20, 2017, when the president’s term ends.

It is not a treaty because it was not ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which the Constitution requires for treaties. Yet the Obama administration cut a deal with the Republican congressional leadership, unknown to the Constitution and unheard of in the modern era. That deal provided that the agreement would be valid unless two-thirds of those voting in both houses of Congress objected. They didn’t.

Then last week, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes, who managed the negotiations with Iran, told The New York Times that he lied when he spoke to Congress and the press about the very issues critics were complaining about. He defended his lies as necessary to dull irrational congressional fears of the Iranian government.

Continue reading “Who Answers for Government Lies?”

Judge Napolitano: Indictment Certain in Clinton Email Scandal Before November

Guest Post by Adam Dick
Expect the indictment of former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or one or more of her high-level aides from the State Department in the next few months.Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano explained in a Fox Business panel discussion last week that the granting of immunity against self-incrimination to Bryan Pagliano, who helped set up the private email server for Clinton that is central to an ongoing investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), means the Department of Justice intends to secure indictment of a person or people up the “totem pole” from Pagliano in the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Concludes Napolitano, “I think there will surely be indictments prior to November.” November, of course, is when the US presidential general election, in which Clinton hopes to compete as the Democratic nominee, will take place.Based on the fact that immunity was granted to Pagliano, Napolitano derives many details of the current state of the government’s investigation into Clinton’s emails. In particular, Napolitano asserts that the following is known:

So we know already the FBI is interacting with the Justice Department, the FBI has already made some recommendations to the Justice Department, the Justice Department has accepted those recommendations seriously, has convened a grand jury, and has begun or will soon begin to present evidence to the grand jury, and they need Mr. Pagliano’s testimony immunized, which means he no longer has the privilege against self-incrimination because they can’t use against him whatever he says. It also means — this is profound — they intend to indict someone. It’s not Bryan Pagliano; he can only be indicted if he commits perjury if he lies under oath. But, they intend to indict someone in this chain north of him.

Continue reading “Judge Napolitano: Indictment Certain in Clinton Email Scandal Before November”