Thursday, May 30, 2019

Alan Dershowitz Calls Out Robert Mueller

For your edification, here are a few words by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz about Robert Mueller’s press presentation yesterday. Considering that Dershowitz is an expert on the law but he is anything but a Trump partisan. Thus, we give his words special weight.

As you will see, Dershowitz believes that Mueller disgraced himself and his office. Strong words, indeed:

The statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said that” is worse than the statement made by then FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. Comey declared in a July 2016 press conference that “although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive highly classified information.”

Comey was universally criticized for going beyond his responsibility to state whether there was sufficient evidence to indict Clinton. Mueller, however, did even more. He went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump. By implying that President Trump might have committed obstruction of justice, Mueller effectively invited Democrats to institute impeachment proceedings. Obstruction of justice is a “high crime and misdemeanor” which, under the Constitution, authorizes impeachment and removal of the president.

And, finally, Dershowitz makes the salient point, point that the legion of Trump’s detractors have missed. The rules must be the same for everyone. They should not be changed for anyone. In a constitutional republic everyone follows the same rules. If not, you are building bias and division into the system:

No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor, and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.

2 comments:

UbuMaccabee said...

Alan Dershowitz: the last honest liberal. May he live for another 100 years.

Sam L. said...

I can respect Dershowitz.