Thursday April 27, 2000; Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com

Napolitano: 'Indict Reno for Kidnapping'

Florida Governor Jeb Bush should convene a grand jury and attempt to indict Attorney General Janet Reno for Saturday's gunpoint abduction of 6-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez.

That's the opinion of former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano, who made the shocking assertion Thursday night on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes.

Arguing that the Justice Department had gone far beyond what the law allowed in the Gonzalez case, Napolitano told Fox:

"The search warrant was unlawful. The seizure of the boy was in direct violation of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. And Jeb Bush should go before a grand jury in Florida and ask that Janet Reno be indicted for kidnapping."

Since last Saturday's pre-dawn raid, Napolitano has become one of Reno's more outspoken legal critics. On Wednesday he penned a forceful op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal entitled "Reno's Raid Was Based on Tissue of Lies."

But Napolitano reserves his strongest rhetoric for the talk show circuit, where his arguments often defy conventional legal wisdom.

Nationally syndicated radio host Lowell Ponte cited one of Napolitano's more remarkable Elian case insights in his Monday column for Front Page Magazine Online (See: Search and Seizure)

Noting that the Immigration and Naturalization Service appointed Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez to be the boy's legal guardian and that Lazaro has already applied for Elian's asylum, Ponte wrote:

"As veteran Judge Andrew Napolitano has observed, under federal law and INS regulations, once such an asylum claim is filed, the INS and Justice Department lose all power to remove the original guardian. If they could do this, the government could deny any asylum application a fair hearing merely by assigning a new and unfriendly guardian to his case."

If the judge's argument turns out to be legally sound, it could have devastating implications for the Clinton administration. For instance, it would make the Justice Department's gunpoint abduction of Elian a gross violation of the law and perhaps provide the foundation for the kidnapping indictment Napolitano envisions.

The former Superior Court judge, who now teaches constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School, made the same case Wednesday on Sean Hannity's New York radio show:

"The federal court had already ruled that [Elian] was lawfully in the house. Why? Because the INS chose Lazaro as the guardian. And the INS designated the place for the boy to live - in Lazaro's house. Now the INS attempted to change that. But they made the mistake of attempting to change the idenitity of the guardian and the place of the boy's residence after the application for asylum was made."

Napolitano continued:

"If they had made that change before Lazaro and Elian filed an application for asylum, they could do it. But once the application for political asylum has been made, the INS loses its power to change the identity of the guardian and the place of residence for the boy."

Obviously, the Clinton gang doesn't see it that way. But if the courts concur with Napolitano, the Elian Gonzalez case could turn out to be the most prosecutable of all Clinton administration scandals.