Alan Dershowitz laid out the dangers of allowing Special Counsel Robert Mueller to treat President Donald Trump like a mafia boss during a Saturday morning “Fox & Friends” appearance.
“Witnesses understand the rules of the game,” he explained. “The better the story the better the deal.”
The Harvard Law professor emeritus has said repeatedly that he doesn’t really see an intentional crime in the case of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. On Saturday, Dershowitz claimed that the only reason Mueller would have to going after Flynn is the hope that he would “turn on the boss.”
.@AlanDersh: Comey and Mueller are treating President Trump as if he were a mafia boss, and there’s great risks because witnesses understand the rules of the game – the better the story the better the deal pic.twitter.com/BpnstHmMkw
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) May 5, 2018
According to Dershowitz, however, the prosecution of Gen. Flynn has much larger implications.
“Comey says that Trump is like a mafia boss. And now we know that Comey and Mueller are treating Trump as if he were a mafia boss. Trying to find the soldiers, the underlings, squeeze them, threaten them, and maybe they’ll sing.”
The risk inherent is that the witnesses, who are watching the investigation play out in the public eye as well, “understand the rules of the game — the better the story the better the deal.”
“This is a common tactic and Americans ought to know that and we ought to be concerned about it, and every civil libertarian should be speaking out about this,” Dershowitz added.