Rep. Trey Gowdy is "fairly persuasive" with his comments that the FBI had an obligation to investigate Russian activities during the 2016 election, but assurances still need to be made that having an informant contacting people in President Donald Trump's campaign wasn't done for political reasons, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Wednesday.
"I don't believe this is a partisan activity; I think this is a wrong attempt to have a special counsel," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
"I'm relatively satisfied with Gowdy's assurances. I would rather see the inspector general look this into and the American people. When you get an informant near a campaign there has to be an assurance it was not political of origin in nature."
Dershowitz added that he is been "halfway persuaded" by Gowdy's statements that the FBI acted properly, but he still wants to hear the inspector general and he would like to "see the facts myself. I'm on the way to being persuaded."
He does think that the FBI should have informed the Trump campaign that it was using an informant to gather information.
"They probably should have said to [Trump] look, we'll be checking out the way you said we should," said Dershowitz, adding that it is possible that the FBI didn't find what it was looking for, and that could explain why former FBI Director James Comey announced the status of his investigation into Hillary Clinton.
"[That] may have cost her the election, and he didn't say anything about the Trump campaign, which might have leveled the playing field because they didn't have anything on Trump," said Dershowitz. "If they had something on Trump I think they were obligated equality to say something about that in much the way they said something about Hillary Clinton.
Gowdy also said that Trump wasn't the target, and that he should sit down with Mueller and get the matter hashed out, but Dershowitz said Gowdy, a former prosecutor, is "not a good lawyer if he says that."
"In 53 years of practice I've had clients who had nothing to hide and never had any of them sit down with prosecutors," said Dershowitz.
"They aren't trying to help you, they're trying to set a perjury trap for you. Even Comey said the reason they didn't question Hillary Clinton was that they knew the facts. The only reason for questioning the subject is to see if they'll lie about it. I don't see the answer being if you've done nothing wrong sit down with the prosecutor. That's not good advice for a client."
Dershowitz said he also thinks Trump is "entirely correct" by maintaining that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should have informed him that he would be recusing himself from the Russia investigation, which would have allowed him to name someone else as attorney general.
"The minute he recused himself he should have offered his resignation, said Dershowitz. "I don't know whether the president would have accepted it or not, but I think that the idea that the president was stuck with an attorney general who was recused from the most investigation being conducted is an untenable situation for the president."
A president is "entitled to loyalty" from an attorney general in the same way Robert Kennedy gave his to President John F. Kennedy and in the same way others have, Dershowitz continued.