Well, this was interesting.
“Let me be very clear. I don’t have a dog in this fight … I’m here to defend civil liberties and to talk about the Constitution and to talk about the presumption of innocence,” said Alan Dershowitz (shown above right), professor emeritus at Harvard University.
He appeared on CNN recently with host Chris Cuomo (above left) to discuss the issues surrounding President Donald Trump, vis-à-vis the recent bad news for his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and for his former presidential campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
For one brief moment, it seemed things would go smoothly.
Ah, but then they didn’t.
Quickly, the back story: Cohen claimed Trump told him to violate campaign finance laws back in 2016 by paying off two women who alleged they had affairs with Trump — Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal — years before the presidential race. Cohen reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors last Tuesday on eight felony counts, two of which concerned campaign finance law violations. The president’s former lawyer pleaded guilty to facilitating payments to the two women.
Cohen now says he paid Daniels and McDougal with the “coordination and the direction of a candidate for federal office.” The unnamed “candidate” presumably is Trump.
As for Manafort, he was convicted on eight of 18 criminal counts related to financial and tax fraud (the judge declared a mistrial on the other 10 counts). Although Manafort found himself on the hot seat from special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the probe into allegations of collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests, none of Manafort’s charges were linked to the campaign.
But here’s what happened between Chris Cuomo and Alan Dershowitz, in part:
At first the subject was Trump. Then it wasn’t.
Related: Biggest Crime Today Is Being Associated with Donald Trump, Harvard Prof Says
“Any [presidential] candidate has the right to contribute unlimited amounts to his own campaign … Any candidate has the right to pay hush money to somebody to influence the outcome of the election. The problem is —”
He was cut off briefly by another panelist, Jennifer Rodgers, a former prosecutor, who said, “Not if it’s unreported.”
Dershowitz went on to say, “Well, that’s the next question, whether it has to be reported. And that’s a technical violation. Do you know how many technical violations the Obama campaign committed and every other campaign committed?” said Dershowitz. “Failure to report a contribution by the candidate itself is essentially jaywalking. Then you have the credibility issue, when you have somebody who himself admits that he is a liar … You can die in prison, or you can give me evidence that we can use against somebody else … That is an accusation … It’s an easy embellishment to make if it didn’t happen.”
He continued to remind about the “presumption of innocence.”
He continued to remind about the “presumption of innocence.”
And he went on to share some highly compelling thoughts as Cuomo expressed his constant surprise and incredulity.
Check out the video for the whole story:
Join the Discussion
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.