Months after backing Clinton, the liberal law professor has become a fixture on Fox News, ripping the Russia probe. But those close to him say he has a history with Bob Mueller.
Dershowitz has also criticized Mueller for hiring lawyers who have contributed to Democratic politicians. And he recently released a new book, Trumped Up: How Criminalization of Political Differences Endangers Democracy. Critics say he’s a Trump shill. He says that’s laughable.
“Please put on the record that i am not defending him, that I am only focusing on the issues,” he said. “And the issues this time happen to come out largely on his side—but, by the way, not always.”
Some suspect Dershowitz’s advocacy goes beyond his television appearances. A person familiar with the president’s legal affairs said there are concerns Dershowitz has talked about legal affairs with Trump.
Dershowitz told The Daily Beast this isn’t true. He said he and the president have spoken, but never privately. He said the two men spoke at Mar-a-Lago once when Dershowitz dined there with Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a mutual friend of the two. Trump came over to their table and chatted with them about the travel ban, according to Dershowitz. Trump said he wanted to try to enforce the first version of the travel ban, which federal courts had struck down. Dershowitz said he told the president that would be a bad idea.
“Then he took me aside and said, ‘I want to talk to you about the peace prospects in the Middle East because you know Netanyahu,’” Dershowitz said. “I said, ‘Look, Mr. President, I didn’t vote for you, but on Israel and the Middle East, I am passionately concerned with that and I’m happy to help, 24/7.”
Dershowitz said he later met with Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s envoy for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, and that he also met with Mahmoud Abbas shortly before the Palestinian Authority president met with Trump at the White House. And he said he criticized Trump for not making Elliott Abrams—a foreign policy adviser to George W. Bush—the next deputy secretary of state.
Besides Ruddy, Dershowitz and the president share a number of friends and acquaintances, including Patriots owner Bob Kraft. The two men met years ago in Kraft’s suite at a Patriots game, he said.
“I liked him,” Dershowitz said. “He was very nice, he was very affable. We talked football.”
Dershowitz and Trump also both know Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile who has long been friendly with Bill Clinton, too. Trump once praised Epstein’s social life, noting he likes women “on the younger side.” Epstein was one of Dershowitz’s clients. And he isn’t the most controversial person Dershowitz has defended; the attorney also represented O.J. Simpson.
Publicly, Dershowitz is never one for understatement. Take his recent comments about Antifa, the far left group:
“Antifa is a radical anti-American, anti-free market, communist, socialist, hard, hard left censorial organization that tries to stop speakers on campuses,” he told the hosts of Fox & Friends—reportedly Trump’s favorite TV show—on Tuesday morning.
He taped that hit from Martha’s Vineyard, where he spends the summers.
“I’m not getting very many invitations to dinner at Martha’s Vineyard,” Dershowitz said wryly. “My life can always be judged by the dinner invitations. They went down to zero when I defended O.J. Simpson, and they’re down considerably now.”
But his cable news invitations are through the roof.
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"Dershowitz and Trump also both know Jeffrey Epstein…." https://t.co/cfS6ruytXj
— John Schindler (@20committee) August 23, 2017
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