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Prof. Dershowitz Responds:

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


A few days ago, I published a post criticizing the Prof. Alan Dershowitz' comments on the Michael Cohen guilty pleas and, more generally, on the Mueller investigation. Prof. Dershowitz has sent in a response, which I reprint here in full:

Post's ageist diatribe deliberately distorts my point because he doesn't agree
with my conclusion. I was pointing out the disturbing irony that Mueller was
appointed to uncover crimes committed by Americans relating to Russia that were
allegedly committed before his appointment.

Yet nearly all of his indictments and pleas relate to crimes that were allegedly
committed after his appointment, or financial crimes unrelated to Russia, or crimes
allegedly committed by Russians who are beyond the reach of our law, or
questionable crimes such as payments to women. Resorting to baseless ad
hominem attacks, Post mocks me and my academic affiliation by claiming that
"Dershowitz, invoking the magical powers that are often attributed to Harvard Law
School professors, believes" he knows what the Mueller report will conclude.

Of course, I do not know this. No one, except for Robert Mueller and his staff,
does. There may be more. But at the moment, from everything that we've come to
learn from Mueller and his associates' investigation and "successful" convictions,
they fall short of fulfilling the special counsel's original mandate. I make my point in
an op-ed that Post deliberately does not quote. [Gatestone]

Instead he quotes out of context a snippet from a TV appearance. Read the
op-ed, and respond to that.

I'm happy to debate the somewhat younger David Post and let the public
judge who is Willie Mays and who is Tom Brady.

[Just for the record: I 'deliberately' didn't quote Prof. Dershowitz' op-ed because I was unaware of it.

And a debate—possibly here on the VC?—sounds like an intriguing idea indeed.]