Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday on “America’s Newsroom” that it was “absolutely not” a crime if President Trump paid two women out of his own pocket.
Cohen, who was Trump’s longtime attorney, pleaded guilty Tuesday to violating campaign finance laws in 2016 by arranging hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom claimed to have had affairs with Trump.
Cohen said he acted “at the direction” of then-candidate Trump. In a “Fox & Friends” interview Thursday, Trump said no crime was committed and that the money did not come out of his campaign.
“If candidate Trump paid the money himself, there’d be no violation of law for Cohen or for Trump,” Dershowitz said, noting the source of the payments is unclear. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]The guilty plea entered Tuesday by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen made the day a bad one for President Donald Trump, but media predictions that Trump has met his legal Waterloo are premature, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday.
Dershowitz appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to assess the fallout from Cohen’s plea.
Cohen pleaded guilty to five tax evasion charges and one count of making a false statement to a lending institution. He also pleaded guilty to causing an unlawful corporate contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution in 2016, the Washington Examiner reported.
In court, Cohen said he had been directed by an unnamed federal candidate.
.@AlanDersh: "Every candidate violates the election laws when they run for president…here they're trying to elevate this into an impeachable offense or a felony against the president." #Tucker pic.twitter.com/PT87wHBn9f
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 22, 2018
Dershowitz said that far from being the end of the story, Cohen’s plea was “the beginning of a story that will unravel over time,” adding that it was “not nearly as deadly, lethal as some have portrayed it as being.”
“Violation of election laws are regarded as kind of jaywalking in the realm of things about elections,” Dershowitz said, according to BizPac Review. – READ MORE
[contentcards url=”http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/08/23/dershowitz-trump-did-not-commit-crime-if-money-paid-women-came-out-his-own-pocket” target=”_blank”]