Opinion| Constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz was so disgusted by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s nine minute statement this morning that he immediately sent his written response expressing complete revulsion to the Hill.
“The statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said that” is worse than the statement made by then FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign…”
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“Comey was universally criticized for going beyond his responsibility to state whether there was sufficient evidence to indict Clinton. Mueller, however, did even more. He went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump. By implying that President Trump might have committed obstruction of justice, Mueller effectively invited Democrats to institute impeachment proceedings. Obstruction of justice is a “high crime and misdemeanor” which, under the Constitution, authorizes impeachment and removal of the president.”
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“By putting his thumb, indeed his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias. He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system.
“Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict.”
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“Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.
“That determination of guilt or innocence requires a full adversarial trial with a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence, and other due process safeguards. Such safeguards were not present in this investigation, and so the suggestion by Mueller that Trump might well be guilty deserves no credence. His statement, so inconsistent with his long history, will be used to partisan advantage by Democrats, especially all those radicals who are seeking impeachment.”
We should all agree that the ‘determination of guilt or innocence requires a full adversarial trial with a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence, and other due process safeguards.’
Since such safeguards were not present in this investigation, Donald Trump and the American people deserve the right to thoroughly interrogate Robert Mueller about his partisan determination. Let’s start with a few questions:
- Any potential collusion between Trump and Russia occurred while Obama was the president. Why didn’t Mueller question any Obama officials?
- If Mueller was intent on investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 election why didn’t Mueller think it important examine the roles of Hillary Clinton and the DNC who funded the Steele dossier that sat at the vortex of the charges?
- Why didn’t Mueller bother to confirm the origins of the collusion charges?
- When did Mueller realize there had been no collusion?
Hey Bobby, for our $40 Million dollars we want more than a 9 minute send off. You need to sweat for that money. It’s only fair that you face questioning from ‘a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence, and other due process safeguards.’
