Constitutional expert and famed Harvard law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, took on Jeffrey Toobin to discuss the ongoing Trump-Comey saga, saying in no uncertain terms that “this is not obstruction of justice.”
He explains, “That is his constitutional power. He has the right to say, ‘You will not investigate Flynn.’ The best proof of that is he could have simply said to Comey, ‘Stop the investigation, I’ve just pardoned Flynn.’”
To back up his assertions, Dershowitz reminded viewers of when Bush I pardoned Casper Weinberger the night before trial. After doing so, no one cried ‘obstruction’ because it was within the rights of the President of the United States to do so.
“That’s what President Bush did,” Dershowitz said, citing the case of Caspar Weinberger. “You cannot have obstruction of justice when the president exercises his constitutional authority to pardon, his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI, or his constitutional authority to tell the director of the FBI who to prosecute and who not to prosecute.”
He made the point that impeachment and obstruction are two entirely different things, which reduced Jeffrey Toobin to look like an 11th grade history student learning the constitution for the first time. The President can be impeached for all manners of things, but not for firing Comey and/or asking him to stop investigating Flynn — because it is his right to do so.
“You can impeach him if you don’t like what he did,” he said. “But you cannot say it’s a crime. It’s simply not a crime for the president to exercise his constitutional authority to pardon or to direct the FBI.”
He concluded, “If you and I were expert witnesses in an impeachment trial of President Trump, and we were asked the question, ‘has President Trump committed an obstruction of justice by pardoning Flynn or by firing Comey, or by telling Comey not to investigate Flynn?’, my answer, as an expert on the constitution would be ‘absolutely not, he didn’t commit an obstruction of justice […] it simply isn’t a crime for the President to exercise his constitutional authority.’”
Watch.
https://youtu.be/zCWOSNrCl7Q
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So there we have it – Trump had the constitutional authority to stop Comey investigating, pardon Flynn and fire Comey. Case closed. Bush did it. So why all the hoopla for the last 4 months? Who the hell is advising Trump?
His son Baron?
nice
Love it when fake news CNN gets schooled. Deer in headlights.
Anderson couldn’t process it the first time Dershowitz said it. It was quite telling that he just repeats what he hears rather than doing any of his own research.
Impeachtards btfo. remember when the market was going to crash a few days ago because muh Comey memo, I member.
The Left simply doesn’t care and has criminalized it along with speaking to a Russian.
The Comey Circus just gives us an insight into Trump’s inability to grasp the limits of his power. The Main Event is Mueller. He will nail a few of Trump’s associates and Trump will then trot out the Electoral College map.
Since this is all very legalistic…
I think Dershowitz said you can impeach him for it but it’s not a crime. He didn’t say you can’t impeach him.
video was removed…
Dershowitz is a hardcore Democrat. I’m glad to see that he doesn’t allow politics interfere with his legal opinions. Very salient points.
If Trump pardons anyone, it will have some negative blowback. Better to save that card until needed. He can pardon Flynn when the time comes.
In other words…you can impeach but it won’t work.