Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz dismissed accusations of treason aimed at Donald Trump, Jr., as a New York Times op-ed suggested, for his meeting with a Russian lawyer offering opposition research on his father’s Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
Dershowitz pointed to The New York Times publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, noting that it was protected by the First Amendment.
“[T]here’s really no difference under the First Amendment between a campaigner using information he obtained illegally, from somebody who obtained it illegally, and a newspaper doing it,” he said. “So I think this is conduct that would be covered by the First Amendment. It’s also not prohibited by law. There’s been so much overwrought claim. There are people who are talking about treason. I can’t believe The New York Times had an op-ed yesterday in which treason was mentioned without even looking at the definition.”
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