Andrew C. McCarthy

During Trump's presidency, McCarthy defended Trump amid calls for his impeachment, and authored the 2019 book Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

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. 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. McCarthy wrote that Trump's behavior did not reach the level of impeachable conduct. Previously, McCarthy had written op-eds calling for Hillary Clinton's impeachment before she became president.

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

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. 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."

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. McCarthy reviewed the article as "thorough, thoughtful, and alarming".

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." He claimed that Obama was engaged in "bottom-up socialism."

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.

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.”

In 1986, he was hired as a prosecutor at the Southern District and worked directly for then US Attorney for the district, Rudy Giuliani. 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. 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.

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. In February 2007, McCarthy authored an endorsement for the fledgling candidacy of Rudy Giuliani during the 2008 presidential election campaign in the National Review. McCarthy also served as Giuliani's attorney during the campaign.

Andrew C. McCarthy III (born 1959) is an American columnist for National Review. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. 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. 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.