Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former attorney, is “pleading guilty to a crime that doesn’t exist” to further Democrats’ plans to impeach the president. He offered his analysis during a Wednesday interview with Breitbart Senior Editors-at-Large Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight.
“I don’t think there’s an impeachable offense,” said Dershowitz. “I believe you need to have a specific crime — treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors — and none of the things that [Michael] Cohen pleaded guilty to would rise to that level or even come close to it. What Cohen pleaded guilty to may not even be a crime, the part about the election campaign laws.”
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Dershowitz continued, “Even if it’s true that President Trump contributed $280,000 for the explicit purpose of paying hush money in order to prevent the public from knowing that he had these alleged affairs with these two women, that would simply not be a crime. It might be a political sin, but it would not be a crime.”
Dershowitz advised political observers to maintain scrutiny when consuming “media … that is part of the posse of ‘let’s get Trump at all costs.'”
“There’s a hard question about whether any crime has been committed at all,” stated Dershowitz.
Dershowitz maintained that payment for a non-disclosure agreement from a candidate’s personal funds is entirely lawful. Mark Levin echoed this analysis on Tuesday.
Dershowitz explained, “A candidate can give contributions [to his campaign]. So even if it’s true that the only purpose was to help his campaign — obviously it had multiple purposes; it was obviously designed to also prevent embarrassment to his family, his wife, his children, and all that — but even if you could show, even if he had a memo saying, ‘I want you, my lawyer, to pay $80,000. I’ll pay you back. It’s my campaign contribution, and I want it to be hush money in order to help me be elected president,’ no crime. No crime.”
Dershowitz added, “You don’t charge people with a crime when the law is vague.
On Wednesday, Lanny Davis — Clinton associate and Cohen’s attorney — framed Trump’s alleged conduct as amounting to “a high crime and misdemeanor.” Dershowitz rejected Davis’s characterization.
“This isn’t even close to high crimes and misdemeanors,” said Dershowitz. “First of all, it has to be a crime, and this isn’t a crime.”
Dershowitz concluded, “Cohen is pleading guilty to a crime that doesn’t exist. The only reason they put it in there [is because] they had him dead to rights on other crime. The only reason they put it in there is to connect Trump because Trump isn’t connected to any of the other crimes to which he pleaded guilty. Those are real crimes.”
Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 9 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific).
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