They Were Trying to Rewrite History': Judge Napolitano Bashes DOJ Over Orlando 911 Transcripts

The U.S. Department of Justice released transcripts Monday morning of the Orlando terrorist's phone conversations with 911 operators, omitting references to Islam and the Islamic State terror group.

But after receiving backlash from lawmakers and the public, the DOJ reversed its initial decision to scrub the transcript and released a full, unredacted version Monday afternoon, calling the uproar over the omitted phrases “an unnecessary distraction.”

Image source: Fox News

Speaking on Fox News’ "Varney & Co." Tuesday, Judge Andrew Napolitano claimed the initial decision to scrub the 911 transcripts diminishes the department's credibility.

Napolitano asserted that by removing shooter Omar Mateen's pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the agency was "trying to rewrite history."

"They were trying to sanitize this, so as to give us, the American people, a different impression from what actually happened," he said.

In addition to removing terms like "ISIS" and translating "Allah," the Arabic word for “God,” into English, the DOJ gave an inaccurate summary of events, Napolitano charged.

"Yesterday, they told us in the summary that no shots were fired between the initial encounter between the killer and two police that were there and the breach [three] hours and 12 minutes later," Napolitano said. "From that, we reported that the killings occurred at the time of the breach."

He said that the claim contradicted previous reports detailing the timeline of the shootings, as well as multiple witness accounts.

Napolitano concluded by calling the document a "tragic effort" by the government to present a false narrative of one of the worst shootings in U.S. history, an effort that he said was certainly approved by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, if not President Barack Obama himself.

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