Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy III (born 1959)[2] is an American columnist for National Review. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.[3][4][5] A Republican, he led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks.[6] He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He resigned from the Justice Department in 2003.

For the American actor (born 1962), see Andrew McCarthy.
Andrew McCarthy
Personal details
Born1959 (age 61–62)
The Bronx, United States
Political party Republican[1]
EducationColumbia University (BA)
New York Law School (JD)

During the presidency of Barack Obama, McCarthy characterized Obama as a radical and a socialist, and authored a book alleging that Obama was advancing a "Sharia Agenda". He authored another book calling for Obama's impeachment. He defended false claims that the Affordable Care Act would lead to "death panels", and promoted the conspiracy theory that Bill Ayers, co-founder of the militant radical left-wing organization Weather Underground, had authored Obama's autobiography Dreams from My Father.

McCarthy defended President Donald Trump during his impeachment, but in the last weeks of his presidency, McCarthy thought Trump had then committed an impeachable offense.

Early life and career

McCarthy is the oldest of six children. His father died when he was 13.[7] He graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx borough of New York City, and Columbia College.[7][8]

After graduating from Columbia, McCarthy became a Deputy United States Marshal in the Federal Witness Protection Program.[7] While working at the US Marshal's Office, he studied law at New York Law School.[8] He later joined the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York as a paralegal.[7]

In 1986, he was hired as a prosecutor at the Southern District and worked directly for then US Attorney for the district, Rudy Giuliani.[7][9] In 1995, McCarthy led the successful prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and eleven others for planning and carrying out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the planning of a series of further attacks against New York City landmarks.[6] McCarthy led the satellite office of the Southern District, in White Plains, New York, for five years, where he investigated the 1998 bombings of United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.[8]

After the September 11th attacks in 2001, McCarthy's became a key member of a command team of prosecutors tasked with drafting search warrants and "connecting dots" in the ensuing investigations. He left the prosecutor's office in 2003.[7]

McCarthy is currently a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, serving as the director of the FDD's Center for Law and Counterterrorism. He has served as an attorney for Rudy Giuliani, and is also an opinion columnist for National Review and Commentary. He has also been a regular contributor to Fox News.[10]

He has also served as an adjunct professor at New York Law School and Fordham University School of Law.[7][8]

Views

Prosecution of terrorism

McCarthy was a key member of the terrorism prosecution team after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Starting in the late 1990s, however, he became a vocal skeptic of the use the Southern District of New York's law enforcement infrastructure as the primary method of countering terrorism, stating: “We've become headquarters for counterterrorism in the United States.... Not the CIA. Not anyplace in Washington. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. From the country’s perspective, it’s not a good thing.” A prosecutor’s job, he added, “is not the national security of the United States.”[7]

He harshly criticized the Obama administration for trying suspected terrorists in civilian courts.[7]

Support for Rudy Giuliani

McCarthy has known Rudy Giuliani since at least as early 1986, when he began his career under Giuliani at the Southern District of New York.[7] In February 2007, McCarthy authored an endorsement for the fledgling candidacy of Rudy Giuliani during the 2008 presidential election campaign in the National Review.[9] McCarthy also served as Giuliani's attorney during the campaign.

Barack Obama

During the 2008 presidential election campaign, McCarthy wrote a number of posts on the National Review's Corner blog stating that he thought that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was not serious about protecting United States national security against threats from Islamic extremism and elsewhere, and that Obama had a number of troubling ties and associations with leftist radicals. McCarthy promoted the conspiracy theory that Bill Ayers, co-founder of the militant radical left-wing organization Weather Underground, had authored Obama's autobiography Dreams from My Father.[11][12][13][14] McCarthy reviewed the article as "thorough, thoughtful, and alarming".[15][16]

McCarthy argued in October 2008, "that the issue of Obama's personal radicalism, including his collaboration with radical, America-hating Leftists, should have been disqualifying."[17][18] He claimed that Obama was engaged in "bottom-up socialism."[19][20][21][22]

McCarthy defended Sarah Palin's false claim that Obama's health care reform, the Affordable Care Act, would lead to the creation of "death panels."[19][23]

In May 2009, McCarthy provided details of a letter declining an invitation from Attorney General Eric Holder for a round-table meeting with President Barack Obama concerning the status of people detained in the War on Terror. McCarthy noted his dissension with the administration in their policies regarding the detainees.[24] On December 5, 2009 he came out publicly against prosecuting Islamic terrorists in civil courts rather than military tribunals, saying "A war is a war. A war is not a crime, and you don't bring your enemies to a courthouse."[7]

Throughout the Obama administration, McCarthy promoted views about the Obama administration's advancement of a "Sharia Agenda", arguing that radical Islamists were working with liberals within the United States government to subvert democracy in the West.[25][26][27][28][29]

In 2014, McCarthy published a book calling for Obama's impeachment, saying Obama had committed seven categories of impeachable offenses.[30] He said, "the failure to pursue impeachment is likely to be suicide for the country."[31]

Hillary Clinton

Even though Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State had ended in 2013, McCarthy called for her impeachment from that office in 2016 for actions performed during that tenure. The purpose of this would have been to bar her from holding further federal offices, thus frustrating her presidential run.[32][33]

Jamal Khashoggi

After prominent Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi operatives, McCarthy claimed that Khashoggi might have been an operative of the Muslim Brotherhood.[34]

Gun violence

McCarthy has stated on Fox News that he supports gun violence restraining orders as a tool for American law enforcement to remove firearms from those found to be a danger to themselves and/or others. He believes that the measures can reduce the country's gun violence problem.[35]

Donald Trump

In 2019, he authored Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency. President Trump endorsed the book in September 2019.[36] McCarthy defended Trump amid calls for his impeachment over the Trump-Ukraine scandal where Trump sought to get the Ukrainian president to start an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden.[37] McCarthy wrote that Trump's behavior here did not reach the level of impeachable conduct.[30] However, after the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, McCarthy wrote an opinion piece in which he stated, "I do think the president has committed an impeachable offense, making a reckless speech that incited a throng on the mall, which foreseeably included an insurrectionist mob."[38]

Publications
  • Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad (2008)
  • How Obama Embraces Islam's Sharia Agenda (Encounter Broadsides, 2010) ISBN 978-1-59-403558-6
  • The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America (2010)[39]
  • How the Obama Administration has Politicized Justice (Encounter Broadsides, 2010)[40]
  • Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (Encounter Books, 2013) ISBN 978-1-59-403691-0
  • Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama's Impeachment (Encounter Books, 2014)
  • Islam and Free Speech (Encounter Broadside, 2015) ISBN 978-1-59-403748-1
  • Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency (Encounter Books, 2019) ISBN 978-1-64-177025-5

References
  1. "McCarthy, Andrew C. III." Marquis Who's Who in America, edited by Marquis Who's Who, Marquis Who's Who LLC, 70th edition, 2016. Credo Reference, https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/marquisam/mccarthy_andrew_c_iii/0 Accessed 19 May 2020.
  2. "The Terror Conspiracy: A Sweeping Victory By the Home Team". New York Times. October 2, 1995. Retrieved November 7, 2016. ...Andrew C. McCarthy, a 36-year-old Bronx native...
  3. "Andrew C. McCarthy" (columnist bio). PJ Media. pjmedia.com. Archived from the original on November 13, 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  4. Powell, Michael (October 17, 2006). "Lawyer Sentenced for Aiding Terrorist Client; 28 Months Is Far Less Than Prosecutors Sought". The Washington Post.
  5. Fletcher, Laurel E.; et al. (February 2012). "Defending the Rule of Law: Reconceptualizing Guantanamo Habeas Attorneys". Connecticut Law Review.
  6. "Andrew C. McCarthy, Director, FDD's Center for Law and Counterterrorism". Biographies. Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Archived from the original on 2007-08-06. Retrieved 2007-09-26.
  7. Weiser, Benjamin (February 19, 2019). "Andrew C. McCarthy, a Terrorism Prosecutor, Changes View". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  8. "Andrew C. McCarthy". American Freedom Law Center. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  9. "Giuliani for President". National Review. 2007-02-15. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  10. "Andrew McCarthy". Fox News. 2019-02-16. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  11. Sessions, David (2011-03-24). "Jack Cashill's 'Deconstructing Obama' Argues Bill Ayers Wrote Obama's Memoirs". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2018-04-15.
  12. "Andrew McCarthy's Defense of McCarthyism". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2018-04-15.
  13. "Is Barack Obama actually not in this photo of Barack Obama?". Salon. 2011-04-07. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
  14. Packer, George. "End of an Era (4)". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  15. "Did Obama Write "Dreams from My Father" ... Or Did Ayers? | National Review". National Review. 2008-10-11. Retrieved 2018-04-15.
  16. Kaufman, Scott. "Who really wrote "Obama"'s Dreams from My Father? - The Edge of the American West". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
  17. "Thank the Clintons for Obama ... Again". Archived from the original on 2008-10-24.
  18. "Newt Gingrich plays Goebbels for Trump in insane attack on justice department and Mueller". Salon. 2017-07-30. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
  19. Chait, Jonathan (2011-07-21). "Rick Perry Takes Foreign Policy Advice From Crazy Man". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
  20. washmonthly; Hilzoy (2008-10-08). "Round The Bend". Washington Monthly - Politics. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  21. "From Cynicism to Madness". Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  22. Gertz, Matt. "Fox's Kelly Hosts Conspiracy Theorist McCarthy For Baseless Fast And Furious Speculation". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  23. Graves, Lucas. (6 September 2016). Deciding What's True : the Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism. ISBN 978-0-231-54222-7. OCLC 984640600.
  24. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-05-03. Retrieved 2009-05-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. results, search (2010-12-07). How Obama Embraces Islam's Sharia Agenda (Bklt ed.). 45 S: Encounter Books. ISBN 9781594035586.CS1 maint: location (link)
  26. results, search (2010-05-25). The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America (1st ed.). New York: Encounter Books. ISBN 9781594033773.
  27. "Andrew McCarthy's Defense of McCarthyism". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2018-09-23.
  28. "Testimony of Andrew C. McCarthy Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts Hearing on: "Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts to Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism" June 28, 2016" (PDF).
  29. Foundation, The Bradley. "In Encounter Broadside, Andrew McCarthy tells how Barack Obama embraces Islam's sharia agenda > The Bradley Foundation". bradleyfdn.org. Archived from the original on 2018-09-23. Retrieved 2018-09-23.
  30. "Republicans Want Trump to Apologize for Ukraine and Move On. He Won't". New York Magazine. 2019.
  31. "The 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' Dodge". The Atlantic. 2019.
  32. Andrew C. McCarthy (September 6, 2016). "Impeach Clinton to Bar Her from Holding Federal Office. It's Constitutional". National Review.
  33. Chait, Jonathan (September 6, 2016). "National Review Author Not Waiting for Hillary Presidency to Start Impeachment". Intelligencer.
  34. Kirell, Andrew (2018-10-19). "Fox News Spent the Past Week Smearing Jamal Khashoggi". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2018-10-24.
  35. Garcia, Victor (August 9, 2019). "Andrew McCarthy: 'Red flag' laws are constitutional". Fox News.
  36. "Watch How Trump Moves the Goalposts on Ukraine". The Bulwark. 2019-10-08. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  37. "National Review's Strained Defense of Trump". The New Republic. 2019.
  38. McCarthy, Andrew. "Impeachment, by the Numbers," National Review, 9 Jan. 2021. Retrieved 10 Jan. 2021.
  39. McCarthy, Andrew (2010). The Grand Jihad. San Francisco: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-377-3.
  40. McCarthy, Andrew (2010). How the Obama Administration Has Politicized Justice. San Francisco: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-474-9.
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