Famed Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz Tuesday rejected fired FBI Director James Comey’s argument that there was nothing wrong with leaking his memos documenting private conversations with President Donald Trump.
Appearing on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Dershowitz drew from his own personal experience — a case he argued before the Supreme Court in 1980.
That case, Snepp v. United States, involved former CIA agent Frank Snepp, who wrote a book on his experiences during the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1970s. The government objected, and Dershowitz helped Snepp fight the case.
“They won,” Dershowitz recalled. “They took it all the way up to the 4th Circuit [Court of Appeals] and then to the United States Supreme Court, and I lost and lost, lost, lost at every point. I was devastated. I thought the First Amendment had really suffered.”
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In an unsigned opinion, the high court noted that Snepp had signed an agreement to get government permission before divulging information that might be privileged. The justices ruled he had breached the “constructive trust” between him and the government. Even if Snepp had not revealed classified information, the court ruled, writing the book “impairs the CIA’s ability to perform its statutory duties” and could harm current employees.
Snepp had to surrender his royalties from the book.
“The existing precedent would suggest that Comey doesn’t have the complete right to publish everything he published, including secret, confidential conversations with the president-elect and the president of the United States.”
Dershowitz (pictured above) said it was the only First Amendment case he ever lost.
Dershowitz — who has emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent and active defenders despite their stark political differences — said he views Comey’s actions in the same light. After Trump fired him last year, Comey used a Columbia School of Law professor to leak embarrassing information about conversations with the president.
Related: Comey Is ‘a Man Without Courage,’ Dershowitz Says
“The existing precedent would suggest that Comey doesn’t have the complete right to publish everything he published, including secret, confidential conversations with the president-elect and the president of the United States,” he said. “It certainly creates a very bad precedent for future CIA, FBI, U.S. attorneys.”
Many high government officials have written books about their experiences. The right way to do it, Dershowitz said, is to emulate former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He has written many books — but years after the fact, with historians in mind, long after the principal figures have died.
Dershowitz said Comey’s book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” is different.
“To write a gossipy book in the middle of an investigation, self-justifying, making a lot of money without concern for what impact it’s gonna have on presidential willingness to talk to officials of the government in a confidential way,” he said. “It’s really a very, very dangerous precedent. And I certainly don’t approve of it.”
PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, article image: Alan Dershowitz, CC BY-ND 2.0, by U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv)
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