Suspended pundit returns to Fox and immediately repeats British wiretap claim that got him kicked off air

Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano returned to the airwaves on Wednesday, but he said that he "stands by" the debunked claims that got him kicked off the air in the first place.

Napolitano caused an international incident earlier this month when he announced on Fox News that President Barack Obama had used the British spying agency GCHQ to surveil then-candidate Donald Trump. Trump repeated the claim during a live news conference, forcing the British agency to make a rare denial.

Napolitano was suspended from the network, and Fox News stated that it could not back up his claim.

On Wednesday, the legal analyst made his first appearance on Fox News following the suspension. Host Bill Hemmer immediately asked if he still stood by his claim.

"I do," Napolitano insisted. "And the sources stand by it. And the American public needs to know more about this rather than less because a lot of the government surveillance authorities will expire in the fall. And there will be a great debate about how much authority we want the government to have to surveil us."

"And the more the American public knows about this, the more informed they are and Congress' decisions will be."

"So no change then?" Hemmer pressed.

"Correct," Napolitano declared.

It wasn't immediately clear why Fox News allowed Napolitano to return to the network and make the same debunked claim that it had suspended him for in the first place.

Watch the video below from Fox News, broadcast March 29, 2017.