Dershowitz: Mueller 'Tried to Spring a Perjury Trap' on Trump (Fox News' "Fox & Friends")
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Wednesday, 21 November 2018 08:53 AM
It was a "very smart decision" for President Donald Trump to answer special counsel Robert Mueller's questions in writing rather than in person, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Wednesday, as the former FBI director had tried to get the president to perjure himself.
"Clearly, Mueller had tried to spring a perjury trap," Dershowitz told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
"When you answer the questions in writing and although the president said it was his answers, obviously the lawyers vetted them. That's designed to avoid a perjury trap. So, I think this has been a win-win for President Trump, when it comes to any kind of legal or impeachment vulnerability."
Trump's lawyers said Tuesday they provided Mueller's office with written responses to questions on Russian election interference, while pushing back on questions concerning obstruction of justice, and Dershowitz said Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani is "100 percent right" with his arguments on the issue.
"A president can't obstruct justice by exercising his constitutional authority to fire, to pardon, anything of that kind," Dershowitz said. "The president should not answer questions about how or why he exercised his constitutional authority.
"That is covered by executive privilege. You don't want to start allowing prosecutors to psychoanalyze presidential motives if the president acted according to Article 2 of the constitution so he was absolutely right."
Poster Comment:
Video at source.