U.S. President Donald Trump and his senior advisor Jared Kushner arrive for a meeting with manufacturing CEOs at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. February 23, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
Liberal Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday that the FBI scrutiny of Jared Kusher “raises great concerns about civil liberties.” Mr. Dershowitz said the Russia probe was “being done backwards” and likened it to Stalin’s secret police.
“Usually, you can point to a statute and say, ‘We’re investigating crime under this statute,'” Dershowitz told Anderson Cooper on CNN. “What Mueller seems to be doing is saying: ‘We don’t like what happened. Maybe there was some collaboration. But I can’t figure out what statute was being violated.’
“When Hillary Clinton was being investigated, at least we knew what the statute was.”
Reports on Thursday claimed the FBI was investigating Kushner’s meetings last year with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a banker from Moscow.
Kushner has cooperated with investigators and even volunteered to talk to lawmakers and the FBI.
“Mr. Kushner previously volunteered with Congress what he knows about these meetings,” Jamie Gorelick, Kushner’s lawyer said in a statement. “He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry.”
Dershowitz said Gorelick, who is one of his former students, should first ask investigators what crime exactly they are investigating and the scope of the probe. As Dershowitz and other legal scholars like Jonathan Turley have said, astonishingly considering media coverage, the unproven “collusion” allegation isn’t even a crime.
“I would say, first to the investigators: ‘Before you talk to my client, I want to know what your authority is. What your jurisdiction is.'”
Mr. Dershowitz likened the Kushner inquiry to the words of Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria: “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”
“I don’t like criminal investigations to start on hoping that once you have the target, maybe we’ll find the crime, maybe we’ll find the statute – and if we can’t find the statute, we’ll stretch the statute to fit the person.”
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I have heard Mr. Dershowitz speak several times. and he has made excellent points.. and he is right.
He's also a candidate for FBI director. But shoooooossshhh. It's a secret.
People's Pundit Daily I hope so.. I don't agree with his politics.. but he is a straight shooter. I would welcome that.
He makes excellent points.
I read somewhere that in Rome, two doctrines concerning crime and punishment were considered: Nullum crimem sine lege (No crime without a law) and Nullum crimem sine poena (No crime without a punishment). The Roman legal tradition settled on the former, as the latter was much too susceptible to abuse by tyrants.
This history, in fact, echos Dershowitz's point. The left wants FBI scrutiny of Jared Kushner in the hopes that he, and through him Trump, will be punished. Whether or not a law was broken is largely immaterial, so long as the punishment may be meted out.
And, by the way, due to the explosion of the quantity of law on the books, it's very much likely that they may find something, no matter what he did. Remember what Sol Wachtler, the former chief judge of New York state, said: "A grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted."
It would be ironic if a country that can come up with thirteen charges when someone shoplifts can't identify a crime here.
Good piece, but it astonishes me that Kushner's lawyer is Jamie Gorelick, the "mistress of disaster."