Alan Dershowitz: NY Prosecutors Pose Greater Danger to Trump Than Mueller
No such constitutional defenses for state investigations
On Fox and Friends Monday morning, the Harvard Law professor emeritus explained that while Trump has constitutional defenses in the federal investigation conducted by Mueller, that’s not the case in investigation currently underway at the behest of New York’s Southern District.
Watch here:
From Fox News Insider:
The “greatest risk” to President Donald Trump’s presidency and businesses is not Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but federal prosecutors in New York, according to Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus, explained on “Fox & Friend” on Monday that Trump has constitutional defenses to Mueller’s Russia probe, but that is not the case with respect to the investigations being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
He noted that last week federal prosecutors secured a guilty plea from longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen and granted immunity to the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.
A source told Fox News that Weisselberg’s immunity agreement was related to the grand jury probe into Cohen’s personal business dealings, including his hush money payments to two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who allege they had affairs with Trump.
“These are business investigations,” Dershowitz explained. “And of course, the president can’t be indicted, but his businesses can be indicted.”
Earlier this summer, New York’s Attorney General sued Trump, kiss kids, and his foundation, alleging repeated, “self-dealing.”
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kiss kids?
Feel free to delte this when you correct ( if you can do so ). To avoid confusion.
Agreed. Basic editing.
I’m sick of lawfare.
I’m sick of politicians being exempted from the laws they pass.
I’m sick of politicians becoming millionaires while in office.
If sdny or any other state/local prosecutors try to usurp the 2016 election, I don’t think it will turn out well for them. Time to act on all the talk about no more federal funds for sanctuary jurisdictions. Any state giving illegals drivers licenses should never receive another penny of federal highway funds. It’s way past time to fight back.
And as usual the left fails to see the potential consequences of how a red state prosecutor may use this same tactic if and when a liberal Democrat becomes president
No, they will find a Federal judge to overrule any action against a Dem
It’s time to can that POS sessions and show the left what revenge prosecution look like.
The swamp is trying to crush us. If they win against Trump, they win against us.
Sessions will do nothing. When Rosenstein doesn’t give Congress documents, Sessions could order him to turn them over. He is a back stabber and needs to go now. The point that Trump wants him out and he hangs on to the job is very suspicious. There are numerous rumors about him and that he is compromised. It sure looks that way.
The behavior of Sessions is equally irresponsible whether or not an issue falls under his illegitimate recusal. He does nothing to fight obvious corruption.
His rare statements are very suspicious. He steadfastly supports the deep state, claims he is a loyal victim, and never cites anything to support his positions.
What in the wide world of sports is going on around here? It is some strange kind of civil war for sure.
I assume the real purpose of the NYAG lawsuit is to get the tax returns and banking records for Trump and Trump’s businesses as part of discovery, and then leak them to her friends. That’s why she’s levying a civil suit. She doesn’t have any evidence for a criminal warrant so she needs to fish for some using the much more lax rules of civil procedure.
She doesn’t even bother to try to hide her bias. Accusing Trump of using his foundation to curry political favor while ignoring Hillary Clinton obviously doing the same thing, on a much larger scale and for many more years, is amazing in its chutzpah.
Hey, how come no one’s talking about Pope Perv, and his big deal with the pervs of the world?
Support the left, and bugger any child you want.
Quite a deal. And with the devil, no less. Good work, Pope Perv.
Pope Perv doesn’t run my life.
Trump’s greatest risk is out of touch Republicans.
Prohibition doesn’t work. Not for alcohol. Not for guns. Not for drugs.
Support for Alcohol Prohibition helped sink Republicans in 1932. I’d like to avoid a repeat.
I’m encouraged by all the Republicans who want a repeat of the 1932 election.
I hope you get your wish.
Agreed, with two caveats:
1. I don’t have to hire them, and no law, ADA or anything else, can compel me to do so.
2. Access to the welfare state requires negative drug tests.
I would argue the behavior of NY state is more a threat to the country than it is to Trump.
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When a state decides to
1. Actively prosecute a Republican because he is President while ignoring similar if not worse crimes committed by Democrats for which their is a greater abundance of information;
2. Pressure its banks to stop providing services to certain conservative supporting industries such as the gun manufacturing and/or sales, in an effort to put them out of business because it goes against what they want regardless of what the country wants;
3. Use its judges to routinely rule against a duly elected President and his policies, based upon abilities given him by the law and Constitution, in an effort to prevent the President from carrying our his responsibilities; and
4. Uses its mass media to publish endless propaganda to pressure the country to, among other things, continue to support an investigation that remains boundless and that was created based on fabricated evidence and dishonest government officials;
Then this becomes less an act against a duly elected President and far more an act of sedition against the country than anything else. In essence, a handful of states, led by New York, are demanding that they control the future and path of the country by their own actions and who cares what anyone else thinks or wants.
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NY is clearly using prosecutorial discretion in a highly biased manner to attack Trump. They are investigating Trump’s charity for committing the same “crimes” that were committed by the Clinton Foundation while ignoring those additional crimes that are far worse and committed by the Clinton Foundation. They are investigating process crimes related to the Russia investigation while ignoring the blatant involvement of the Clinton’s and the DNC as they openly worked with the Russians during the last election and the creation of the Russian dossier. The list goes on.
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This is clearly the case of a state demanding that they operate the country based on their views regardless of what the nation needs or wants. Essentially, they are performing a witch hunt of their own and they could not care less as to the damage this causes the rest of the country, how biased their efforts are, how little evidence they have, etc. This is not only sedition, but a form of secession. It is, for all intents and purposes, a declaration of hostilities in a new civil war.
1. This post has nothing to do with NY State. It is about the SDNY.
2. NY State has not done the things you number 1, 3, and 4. It is not prosecuting the President, no NY judge has overruled the President, and it has no mass media.
That’s what I thought as well. It seems as if this article is conflating SDNY with New York State and then claiming that the Mueller investigation provides the basis for state prosecution.
I still don’t understand this Trump CFO immunity; the press says he was ‘granted’ immunity while it appears as if he has been compelled to testify. Yeah, the two go together as I understand it, one cannot be compelled to testify without immunity, but the legal process ought to be transparent.
Because Cohen pleaded guilty to an unknown crime, the Feds can now compel Trump’s CFO to testify? Have I fallen asleep and awoken in a Kafka novel?
Anyone can be compelled to testify, if the court gives them immunity from their testimony being used against them.
And that kind of immunity, the kind given by a court to compel testimony rather than by a prosecutor to induce testimony, is binding on all other courts, state and federal.
I’ll go ahead and say it – none of this will stop until we start finding these ‘officials’ face down in a ditch.
If the law won’t protect us from them, it also won’t protect them from us, and they won’t have anyone to blame but themselves.
To my knowledge none of these women are claiming that Trump raped them. So, that means they had sex with Trump willingly. They then accepted large sums of money on the condition of keeping this information to themselves.
It is not illegal to be married and have an affair with another woman. Stupid, ill-advised, foolish, but not illegal.* It is not illegal to offer or pay someone money to keep silent about a matter that is not criminal.
But now, these women want to break the agreements they signed to be quiet in order to accept the far greater money they are being offered to talk about said affairs.
I just keep coming back to the same conclusion; Whores.
(Does anyone involved with the investigation care a whit about the years long affair Peter Strzok was having on the job behind his wife’s back? Forgive me if I find their moral preening over Trump’s sex life a bit hollow.)
No you can delete me anytime you want.
I disagree with the learned Professor. Trump has substantial powers.
1. A Federal grant of immunity is binding on the States. Trump probably has the power to grant “immunity”
2. The Civil Rights Act makes it a crime to use color of law to deprive someone of a constitutional right. In other words all members of the cabal (even those with absolute immunity) can be prosecuted.
3. The last and least palatable choice is to invoke the Insurrection Act. Any prosecution is merely an attempt to overthrow the government cloaked in the color of law.
An Attorney General truly concerned about the rule of law and the independence of the Executive Branch would be making it clear to State Officials that they would face severe legal consequences.
What do you think Jeff Sessions is doing?
Federal grants of immunity are not binding on the states, unless they’re grants by a court in order to compel testimony.
In any case, despite the odd sub-title, this post has nothing to do with the states.
References please.
References for what? That a contract between two parties is not binding on a third party?! Why would I need a reference for that, it’s completely obvious and everyone knows it. “What is well known does not need proof.”
That the post has nothing to do with states? Just read the post; the reference is right there in the text.
Oh, well, because you asked nicely I went and looked it up for you. Here you go. Exactly as I wrote, immunity grants by federal prosecutors, given in order to induce testimony, are contracts between the US government and the witness, and so cannot compel third parties such as states. (Immunity grants by a court, state or federal, given in order to compel testimony, are not contracts, and are binding in all other courts, state or federal.)
On what grounds did Rosenstein force the Trump appointed US Attorney in the NYSD to recuse himself? This after appointing Comey’s buddy Mueller as special prosecutor.
What makes you think Rosenstein forced him to recuse himself. It was almost certainly his own decision, precisely because Trump had just appointed him.
The sub-title of this post is…odd. Dershowitz’s words have nothing to do with state investigations. The SDNY is not a state entity.
“The sub-title of this post is…odd.”
I agree — but the news media in general is pushing the same meme. Since it doesn’t make sense, I find it frustrating not to be able to uncover what is going on here.
It’s almost as if the US public is being attacked with loud drums while be sprayed with fire hoses. This isn’t freedom of the press or even propaganda, this is psychological assault.
Evidence initiated by falsifying docs that were present to a judge to illegally obtain a warrant is corrupt.
No fake dossier means no warrant no warrant means no FBI investigation, no FBI investigation means no Mueller, no Mueller means no SDNY.
End this farce now.
That’s not how it works. The exclusionary rule is not in the constitution, it’s a rule made up by the courts for their own internal use, has a ton of exceptions, and isn’t applicable in other contexts.
Actually, the definition of how evidence must be obtained IS in the Constitution, numbnuts, and the courts use the exclusionary rule because without it the 4th Amendment is useless.
4th Amendment: “The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. It requires “reasonable” governmental searches and seizures to be conducted only upon issuance of a warrant, judicially sanctioned by probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. Under the Fourth Amendment, search and seizure (including arrest) should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer who has sworn by it. Fourth Amendment case law deals with three issues: what government activities constitute “search” and “seizure”; what constitutes probable cause for these actions; and how violations of Fourth Amendment rights should be addressed.
The exclusionary rule is one way the amendment is enforced. Established in Weeks v. United States (1914), this rule holds that evidence obtained as a result of a Fourth Amendment violation is generally inadmissible at criminal trials. Evidence discovered as a later result of an illegal search may also be inadmissible as “fruit of the poisonous tree”, unless it inevitably would have been discovered by legal means.
As you yourself pointed out, “numbnuts”, the exclusionary rule is not constitutional, it was invented in 1914. And the courts have never claimed that it is constitutional; they’ve always explicitly said it’s a rule they invented for their own internal use, under their constitutional authority to make their own rules. The “poisonous tree” rule is also something the courts made up for their own internal use, and is absolutely not required by the constitution. Therefore neither rule is relevant here and gwsjr425’s fantasy is just that. Next time take the trouble to read and comprehend what you cut and paste.
Blue-collar folks, the long term unemployed, and formerly unemployed members of minority groups are all getting full-time jobs. Clearly, some people are furious about that change and will do anything to fix it.