The job for a prosecutor, including special counsel Robert Mueller, is not to issue reports about "noncriminal conduct," Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz argued Monday, while discussing The New York Times report the FBI launched an investigation in May 2017 that included a look at whether President Donald Trump was trying to help Russia.
"A report by a special prosecutor is worthless, except if it has corroboration or if it indicts," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "They only hear one side of the issue. They don't hear evidence that is exculpatory. They don't allow cross-examination."
According to the Times, Mueller took over the FBI's inquiry into Trump when he took charge of the investigation into Russia and the 2016 election, and said it is "unclear" whether he is still pursuing the investigation.
Dershowitz argued it was not up to Mueller or any other prosecutor to take over the investigation into Trump himself, as it was not a "criminal investigation" intended to be used for filing charges.
He said he also agrees with the opinion of former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who has written the Russia investigation was always about Trump, not about getting charges on people like former campaign manager Paul Manafort or others.
Judge Thomas Ellis, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District, said last year that Manafort was punished to squeeze him to talk against Trump, Dershowitz said, and he agrees.
"You don't need me and McCarthy to make it," Dershowitz said. "You have a judge making it. It is self-evidently true. All these other people are collateral damage to squeeze them to get incriminating evidence against President Trump. That's the way they often operate. It is a core violation of civil liberties."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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