Retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Friday that the Georgia judge overseeing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election interference case against former President Donald Trump dropped some of the charges against him because of the Constitution’s supremacy clause.
“If the same attitude had prevailed in the mind of the judge in New York — state courts can’t prosecute federal charges — there would have been no federal prosecution, which has resulted in a conviction,” Napolitano said during an appearance on “Wake Up America.” “And, as we know, a sentencing is now scheduled for the week of Thanksgiving. So, the judge in Georgia looked at a line in the Constitution called the supremacy clause, which basically says this Constitution and all laws written pursuant to it shall be the supreme law of the land.
“So, if a state legislature has written the law and the feds have written a law governing the same area, the federal law will supersede,” he continued. “Therefore, since the feds are not charging Donald Trump for anything he did in Georgia, the state can’t as well. That applies to just three of the eight charges against him, and those charges were, these were the allegations; attempting to falsify documents going to the federal government to prove who the true electors were in Georgia. In other words, stating that Trump won Georgia and his electors should go to the Electoral College. That is a federal area; that is not available for the state to prosecute. The rest of the charges against him stay.”
Napolitano also weighed in on Trump’s sentencing in his New York business records case and said that the possibility of it being moved to federal court is slim.
“Yesterday, a three-judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Manhattan upheld a federal trial court saying no,” he said. “It is almost unheard of for a criminal conviction in a state court to be sent to a federal court for sentencing, and that’s basically what the feds have ruled. So, the sentencing is now the week of Thanksgiving. Everything is going to turn on Nov. 5. If he wins that election, he’s not going to be sentenced to any time in jail.”
If the former president doesn’t win a second White House term, Napolitano said “he is in jeopardy of incarceration” when Judge Juan Merchan sentences him in November.
“Here’s what I think the judge will do,” Napolitano said. “I think he’ll sentence him to six months in jail and suspend five months of that and order incarceration just for one month.”
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