{"id":32966,"date":"2018-03-31T21:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-04-01T01:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=32966"},"modified":"2018-03-31T21:00:13","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T01:00:13","slug":"common-sense-from-alan-dershowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=32966","title":{"rendered":"Common Sense From Alan Dershowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alan Dershowitz<\/a> is a civil liberties attorney whose politics are generally left of center. He loves America, he loves the U.S. Constitution<\/a>, and he is concerned about the direction in which the country is headed–not because of President Trump, but because of the intensity of the attacks on President Trump.<\/p>\n

Attorney Dershowitz was recently interviewed by CBS News<\/a>. Please follow the link and read the entire interview. It is very insightful.<\/p>\n

Here are some highlights from that interview.<\/p>\n

Dershowitz spoke to CBS 11 political reporter Jack Fink about Special Counsel<\/a> Robert Mueller<\/a>\u2019s investigation into whether the Trump campaign<\/a> colluded with the Russians to affect the outcome of the 2016 election.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the investigation should end and I think the Congress should appoint a special non-partisan commission,\u201d said Dershowitz. He said he thinks a Congressional committee would be too partisan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the way it\u2019s done in other western democracies,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey don\u2019t appoint a special counsel and tell them to \u2018Get that guy\u2026\u2019 that\u2019s what they did in the Soviet Union<\/a>. Lavrentiy Beria<\/a>, the head of the KGB said to Stalin, \u2018Show me the man, and I\u2019ll find you the crime!’\u201d That\u2019s what special counsel does.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dershowitz was quick to point out that he was not making a direct correlation between the United States<\/a> and the former Soviet Union. \u201cI\u2019m not comparing obviously the Soviet Union and the United States. We have structural protections in our Bill Of Rights but it\u2019s going down the wrong direction.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue of criminalization [of political differences] has not been subject to rational discourse,\u201d said Dershowitz. \u201cDemocrats hate when they politicize and criminalize political differences against Democrats\u2026 when they did it with Bill Clinton. Republicans hate when they do it against their people\u2026 President Trump. But each one supports it when they\u2019re against their enemies and partisanship prevails over principle. It\u2019s very hard to have a reasonable discussion.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Until politicians on both sides of the aisle begin to put the interests of the country above their political interests and the interests of their particular political party, I don’t think any reasonable discussion will be possible.<\/p>\n

Attorney Dershowitz added:<\/p>\n

Dershowitz said that citizens should fear the direction of this investigation for their own sake. He warned that today criminalization of political differences appears \u2013 now \u2013 to only affect presidents and political leaders. \u201cTomorrow it can affect you and me. If you give the prosecutor the ability to stretch the criminal law to fit a target, it\u2019s very dangerous.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dershowitz said that special counsels are not the right way to approach criminal justice. \u201cWhen you appoint a special counsel you give them targets and you say, \u2018You better get that guy or the people around him\u2026and we\u2019re going to give you tens of millions of dollars. And if you come up empty handed you\u2019re a failure.’\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dershowitz said that if an ordinary prosecutor goes months without finding a crime then \u201cthat\u2019s great, no\u2026 there have been no crimes committed.\u201d He says not so with a special counsel. \u201cSpecial Counsel always has the goal of \u2018getting the people.\u2019 They\u2019re going to find crimes, or they\u2019re going to manufacture crimes or they\u2019re going to stretch the criminal law to fit the \u2018crimes\u2019 because they\u2019re not going to come away empty handed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dershowitz was asked what he thinks should happen now. Should Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein curtail the investigation? \u201cI think Rod Rosenstein needs to say to the special counsel, \u2018Do not investigate the private finances of the president before he became president; do not investigate his relatives; do not investigate his sex life.\u2019 Don\u2019t do \u2013 to President Trump \u2013 what Ken Starr did to President Clinton<\/a>,\u201d said Dershowitz . \u201cIt started with Whitewater and ended up with a blue dress. That\u2019s not the appropriate way a special counsel should operate.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t agree with Alan Dershowitz on much, but in this case he is totally right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alan Dershowitz is a civil liberties attorney whose politics are generally left of center. He loves America, he loves the U.S. Constitution, and he is concerned about the direction in which the country is headed–not because of President Trump, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2735,3035,2292,11559,11114,285,1501],"class_list":["post-32966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alan-dershowitz","tag-robert-mueller","tag-soviet-union","tag-special-counsel","tag-trump-campaign","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32968,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32966\/revisions\/32968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}