Tuesday on “Anderson Cooper 360,” legal scholar Alan Dershowitz argued that allegations that Trump tried to influence former FBI Director James Comey are neither interesting nor illegal.
“The President is in charge of the entire executive branch,” he opened. “Historically, the President has always told the FBI and the Justice Department who to investigate; who not to investigate.”
Dershowitz went on to explain, “If it ever came out that the President did what Nixon did, and that is told his assistant ‘Create a fake story, tell the CIA to say this is a national security issue, we can’t have any further investigation,’ that comes much closer to an obstruction of justice.”
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He eventually concluded, “If the President politely suggests to the Director of the FBI, ‘He’s a good guy, Flynn, I’d appreciate if you let him off the hook, I fired him,’ that doesn’t become…”
“Even though the President himself is a subject or part of this investigation?” CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin interrupted. “Its okay for him to say ‘Shut it down?'”
“We should also point that the President also had dinner with James C omey previously, and supposedly had asked Comey for a pledge of loyalty.” host Anderson Cooper added.
“Comey told him he was not a subject,” Dershowitz countered. “When it’s the President of the United States, and we have separation of power, the courts are going to resolve these issues in favor of the President if what he did was lawful.”
“If he destroyed tapes, if he refused to comply with a subpoena, that’s one thing. There’s going to be airing on the side of Presidential authority and Presidential power.”