david: alan dershowitz. great to see you. melissa.russia sending a strong warning to the united states. what does it mean for our position in the middle east? we're asking lieutenant-general thomas mcinerney. david: we're just moments away from president trump meeting with the biggest tech leaders in the country, perhaps in the world. we have all of the details coming up. >> until last week, the government was still requiring federal agencies to check software for y2k compliance. ♪ when you're close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace the chance of completely clear skin with taltz. taltz is proven to give you a chance at completely clear skin. with taltz, up to 90% of patients had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. in fact, 4 out of 10 even achieved completely clear skin. do not use if you are allergic to taltz. before starting you should be checked for tuberculosis. taltz may increase your risk of infections and l

let's talk about this with alan dershowitz. was caused by the death of antonin scalia last year. what could justice kennedy's departure mean for the court? he leaves now, especially in the current political climate. >> so it would mean the substitution of a more ideologically right wing justice for a right-leaning centerist justice who has strong views about the rights of gay people and health care and a range of other issues. so i think we see some change in some decisions but i have to tell you, i think we way exaggerate the impact of the supreme court on the daily life of americans. i have been watching the supreme court for more than 50 years. and i can only think of maybe a dozen or even fewer cases where the supreme court has really made a difference in the life of the average american. obviously, the desegregation case would be one. the gay marriage case. abortion case would be another. but you really you can count on one or two hands -- take for example the issue of money in politics. money in politics apparently doesn'

for an amino, alan dershowitz, professor emeritus of harvard law school, great to have you with us. >alan: my pleasure, i've been looking forward. >> martha: thank you, with the looking forward to having you. i want to put up one more piece of the his peace because he's been highly critical of this president. this is a very big about-face for him. he said "things are so bad that i'm going to have to get from the last word." on june 15th he tweeted and he goes on to say they made up a phony collusion with the russian story, found zero proof so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story and he comes back to say unless there's some new revelation, that may turn out to be pretty accurate commentary. >> alan: i think he's right. we are seeing it from both sides. what happens in america is if you don't like someone politically, lock them up! throw the key away! each side criminalizes political differences with the other side. they did it with hillary clinton, with the espionage and the email server, that was never going to be a real crime and they are doing with donald trump.

people like alan dershowitz argue the opposite.nk in the instance it comes across as partisan. i'll say it in this regard. when you have private conversations with a president-elect or president himself, bharara is one of 93 u.s. attorneys that serve at the pleasure of the president. every administration, the president has the right to fire or let go the u.s. attorneys. in this case, you are supposed to. it is protocol to submit a letter of resignation. whatever happened at trump tower, bharara was given the privilege of staying on. that changed. i feel it is unseemly. >> bharara thought it was unseemly. it is interesting if any other attorneys had conversations. asha, president trump said 100% he would testify. you worked as investigator before. i have to believe that would be music to your ears. hearing someone involved in the case one way or the other. 100% i will testify under oath. good for investigation, maybe not good for the person who makes that claim. i was talking to alan dershowitz friday night who told me that presiden

>> my judgment is that alan dershowitz is wrong. it's not even a close question.se, we don't have all the facts, but his position is the facts don't matter. the president simply cannot be guilty of obstructing justice because as head of the executive branch, he can completely control any prosecution. the supreme court has twice rejected that view. unanimously in the nixon case, by a vote of 8-1 in the morrison case. the fact is that the president has all kinds of powers, but if he abuses them, for example, by accepting a bribe from russia or any of a number of other things, if he does in a corrupt way or with threats of the kind that he made to comey about his retaining his job, if in either of those ways he interferes with the due administration of justice, that would be obstruction of justice, even under the federal criminal statutes of 18-usc section 1503, but even more important, it would be an abuse of power that could be an impeachable offense. it's more serious than what nixon did. it's really impossible to argue that no obstruction of justice could be pres

is that obstruction, is it, as alan dershowitz said, a mafia don saying that i hope something will happentjust a suggestion that the director is free to ignore? if it we re director is free to ignore? if it were a criminal charge, a jury would have to make a decision. this will never go to a criminaljury, so it is even more complicated. it will be important. striking that we didn't learn anything new from the testimony. director miller and his investigation may be under pressure. thank you forjoining us. president of the national cost of tuition centre talking to us from la. —— constitution centre. across the country, people are casting their votes in the general election, nearly 47 million voters registered to ta ke nearly 47 million voters registered to take part and polling stations are open until 10pm. the main party leaders have been out casting their vote. casting her vote and waiting for millions of you to do the same. theresa may and her husband, philip, out visiting their local polling station. a short time laterjeremy corbyn had a smile and a thumbs up as he arrived to cast his

we're joined by professor alan dershowitz. thanks for being here.o some like anita hill who testified she had been sexually harassed by clarence thomas. do you think it is a big deal? >> no. it is not a big deal because we have the notes. there will be no major surprises. >> we don't have the notes of what they purportedly say. >> and the notes will come out and he has the notes and knows what they will say. he will stick very very close to the notes. the reason this may end up being good for trump, not bad for him, is there will be an opportunity for republicans to cross examine him very harshly. he is hated by the democrats and republicans and the democrats believe he turned the election over to the republicans and the republicans because they now think she's turning against their president. he will have a pretty hard time in front of that congressional committee. the other myth that has to be dissipated that somehow mueller has to give him permission to testify. congress comes first. the justice department comes second. congress is an independent

as much as i admire alan dershowitz, i think he is completely off base with this. >> being developed against president nixon in their bill of impeachment when president nixon resigned rather than face that trial. >> that's right. and the abuse in that case was remarkably similar to this. nixon, rather than himself telling the fbi to lay off was little chicken about it. he essentially told the cia director and others to lean on the fbi. well, apparently very much the same happened here. we have reason to believe that president trump told dan coats and told admiral rogers to reinforce his threat to the fbi director by telling the fbi director to lay off of flynn. and of course we know that he directly fired comey lying about the reasons, and he did it because of the russia investigation. and he also abused his power in lying about the reasons. that is when director comey, who is a mild mannered man, who does not call someone a liar easily, when he said the president lied in saying the fbi was in shambles, he added that the president defamed the fbi, undermined that vital national insti

i did my first big case with alan dershowitz but he's wrong here. three key points, boris. one, there is strong enough initial evidence to open an investigation. and mueller is opening an investigation of obstruction of justice here. the danger -- number two -- of trump girthing on camera and saying, no, i didn't do it, mueller's going to accumulate other investigation, other evidence that trump did obstruct justice. his own son corroborating it today on tv. sessions will corroborate it if he says, yes, the president kicked me out of the room. then the third point, the most interesting point, the one that alan raises, is can a president obstruct. i believe, and a majority of scholars believe, yes, as a matter of law. a president can obstruct justice. congress has the power to cabin that firing authority, and they have done it by passing an obstruction statute. the obstruction statute, alan, is just like the bribery statute. you wouldn't say president trump could take a bribe from vladimir putin to fire jim comey. senator can he fire jim comey with corrupt intent. and there

talk to professor alan dershowitz and jeffrey toobin joining us. also tonight, the sadness, the fury and of course all the unanswered questions in the wake of a young american's death after being held captive in north korea. are you done yet? does it look like i'm done? shouldn't you be at work? [ mockingly ] "shouldn't you be at work?" todd. hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game: fist pump! your real bike's all fixed. man, you guys are good! well, we are the number-one motorcycle insurer in the country. -wait. you have a real motorcycle? and real insurance, with 24-hour customer support. arcade game: wipeout! oh! well... i retire as champion. game hog! champion. if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. if other treatments haven't worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio works by focusing right in the gi-tract to help control damaging inflammation and

he had the right to fire comey. >> who is right paul butler or alan dershowitz. >> alan dershowitz mostfully. now, here is why. even if trump said these things, it is not a subjective standard on how comey felt if comey felt he was ordered or directed because he wasn't. trump is allowed to fire comey, point-bla point-blank. trump is also allowed to say, hey, i hope you let this go. he's allowed to say prosecute or not prosecute. the question, how do i reconcile what professor dershowitz says, the question is did trump have corrupt intent. and joy, we have no corroborating evidence of that right now. it's not like clinton with the blue dress. there has to be more evidence at this point. >> professor dershowitz was actually my cripple law professor and here is why he was wrong. corrupt intent is ordering the vice president, the attorney general, jared kushner and reince priebus to leave the room. >> to have privacy. >> to have a private conversation that you know we're doing wrong will that's what we prosecutors call consciousness of guilt. as far as trump dn' know about washington ways,

incidentally alan dershowitz is totally misreading the political situation. the republicans are in charge of the investigative committees in the house. >> shannon: do you give him credit then? the republicans, the fact that you're saying -- >> no, absolutely. i give richard burr credit, i give chuck grassley credit. i think that they are mounting serious investigations. i would only go further than alex in saying the real core of the investigation that mueller is conducting and the house and senate intelligence and judiciary committees is about not just russian interference in the election but whether or not the trump campaign colluded with the russians to undermine the election in favor of donald trump. this is really going to be not the politics and what members might say, it is gonna be what is found. i think that's what people need to take a break, take a breath, let mueller and the senate and house committees do their investigations and we'll see where they lead. >> shannon: so far what we're hearing from people on both sides of the aisle is so far they'

also with us professor emeritus at harvard law school alan dershowitz who flew in from london and also with us the writer behind "the washington post," "the right turn" blog jennifer rub he en. thank you for being with us. i want to pay another part of the interview with jay sekulow. jake tapper asked him whether a president can technically commit obstruction of justice. here is his answer. >> in this particular case you had a scenario where the president receiving advice from a variety of his government officials was told by his attorney general and by his deputy attorney general that james comey should not be leading the fbi. it is ironic that based on the action that they recommended, that he took in consultation with others, that he's now being investigated by the agencies that told him to take that very action, removing the fbi director. >>> so, alan, the president's lawyer initially said multiple times he's not under investigation, disregard the president's tweet, but then we just played this clip in which he says the president ironically is being investigated by the person who s

alan dershowitz said there is no statute that has been violated.iend of the president said donald trump is to give out whether or not to fire the special investigator investigating collusion between the trump campaign in russia. what is your advice to the president on that one? that is just commentary from a friend. there is no news, yet also a site that anything would happen on that front. but you think they would be a good idea? -- it is unlikely that anything. it is funny that we have a special counsel when the beacon —— when nobody can name anything that has been violated. just an update on that story, and the white house postwoman is saying donald trump has the right to fire robert muller, but has no intention to do so. more on that to come inevitably, but for the moment, we move on. maude demonstrations in the venezuelan capital of caracas, as the country's economic crisis deepens. unprecedented numbers of people are facing hunger. the country should be one of the richest with one of the largest oil reserves in the world. the international me

jesse: professor alan dershowitz, a democrat, says the president's action is not illegal. oosh viewers know you are a democrat. you are there with your buddies making fun of fox news. the fact that you are telling the democrats not to overreach on this russia probe is a big deal, correct? >> i don't know how many people will show up at the chill march porch. i have gotten calls from people saying why am i defending trump? i say i'm not defending trump. i am defending civil liberties. jesse: you don't see any criminality, obstruction of justice, collusion, nothing. >> certainly not on behalf of the president. the president had the constitutional power to fire comey, he had the power to tell him to tell people he was not under investigation. he had the power to tell him to stop investigating flynn. jesse: you are saying the president could fire mueller right now and that would be fine, though you know the media will go ballistic. >> it's a little bit more difficult to fire mueller. the president can order the deputy attorney general to fire him, then fire him if he refused t

it's not just karl rove republican who claims there is no obstruction alan dershowitz, a famously liberal man, says you can't be accused of obstruction of justice, what you are doing is within your constitutional prerogatives. to end an investigation is entirely within the constitutional prerogative of the president. so there cannot be obstruction. >> i would remind everybody comey had a responsibility. if he believed there was a good chance this was obstruction of justice, he had a duty to go to his superior, road rosenstein. rod rosen. he didn't do that. >> what i think is interesting is that undermining mueller's credibility, you don't hear that from from republicans. >> john: panel, thank you so much. great conversation where we come back, ..ck, ♪ >> john: finally tonight you might recognize this symbol from many different places but kiss rocker gene simmons is trying to trademark as his own. he's filed an application with the u.s. patent and trademark office to trademark at the rock on a hand gesture, he says he was the first person to use it back in 1974. however, you might also rec

corey lewandowski ran the president's campaign for a while, alan dershowitz, mark stein talking aboutsarah huckabee sanders all life. the hug between marco rubio and ivanka trump, we get the inside story, we booked the hugger himself, marco rubio, a busy 3 hours kicks off ten minutes from now on the channel you trust for morning news, "fox and friends" first. so tell us your big idea for getting the whole country booking on choice hotels.com. four words, badda book. badda boom... let it sink in. shouldn't we say we have the lowest price? nope, badda book. badda boom. have you ever stayed with choice hotels? like at a comfort inn? yep. free waffles, can't go wrong. i like it. promote that guy. get the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed. when you book direct at choicehotels.com. book now. [hissing] uh- i- [sound of wrench] [intricate guitar riff] [engine starts] [guitar continues] >> karen handel claiming victory in georgia. heather: from georgia, more on all that is happening. >> we are here at the karen handel campaign office. not a lot going on here. this particular race was expec

and the fact is, as you w know, we have seen zero evidence ofee any collusion and people like alan dershowitze made it very clear and the republican lawyers i have talked to served president bush said there's no obstruction of justice there. >> but that side is not conflicted. we are at war and the civil rights movement, we used to have a saying. it is time to choose which side are you on. so we are at war. we have to fight for national identity. we have to fight for our culture. in the 2016 presidential election was our last chance to save the nation, our last chance to save the culture, and therefore we cannot be conflicted. we've got to fight back. >> that's right. the other thing, the department of justice need to put accounts on hillary clinton because where the trump investigation is going is no evidence of collusion, they're going to gogo to an appropriate contact, but they're going to call an appropriate between doj and fbi and the white house. that's affecting what we had was loretta lynch and president obama, hillary clinton and the other people and they need to put a cancel on that

alan dershowitz said democrats are trying to do to trump as republicans do to hillary. listen to his thoughts. >> yesterday it was hillary clinton, today it's donald trump, tomorrow it could be you. when the head of the kgb met with stalin, he said show me the man and i'll find you the crime. that's what my liberal democrat friends are doing, falling all over themselves, trying find a statute they can expand and they can apply only to donald trump and then they're going to bury the statute and try to put it back in the crib. what you do to donald trump today becomes a precedent and can be used against democrats and independents or anybody in the future. that's why all americans who care about civil liberties ought to be very concerned about the investigation that's being conducted in targeting donald trump, whether you like him or not. >> katrina, first is he right? and second do you think what we're seeing in washington is payback for hillary? >> i think he's partially right, i think he's right this investigation is absolutely ridiculous, and it is setting a very dange

i heard professor alan dershowitz earlier saying he knows both comey and mueller were good friends.here's anything wrong wrong and that, it's just the appearance of it, it should have been avoided. now i don't know you can do about it. when it starts rubbing up and moving, it's going to find something. >> kennedy: you have to assume that this was robert mueller's protege and you have to assume that his methodology is superior to anything of the president and anyone else in the administration will employ. this is going to be a natural level of protection that no one else will be afforded. it makes it more difficult to be completely objective. you hope that some of these have objectivity. a lot of these big, high-powered law firms in l.a. and new york and d.c., lawyers are pressured to make political donations to both parties. i have yet to see if some of these people also donated to republicans. the >> meghan: hell problematic to think his relationship with comey is this before going back to your point, is the same point that david west made on the scout yesterday. if you decide you

we've heard alan dershowitz weigh in on this testimony. as the president has executive power over the fbi and justice department and can stop all these investigations, but congress, as my fellow history buffs will recall, threatened to impeach president nixon based on a conversation about pressuring the fbi to stay the hell out as h.r. haldeman said, so what's different here? >> i don't think mr. dershowitz is correct. there is no general structure or constitutional principle that overrides the obstruction of justice law. it can't be the case that the president has absolute plenary authority to do whatever he was with the law enforcement machinery or the -- for "house of cards" fans it would be like if president underwood in that show during the timed the fbi to stop investigating his chief of staff who, you know -- spoiler alert -- at some point in the show knows a lot about what the president has done in violation of the law. that wouldsh -- >> be prepared for a lot of tweets there on the spoil are drop. the president pushed back on come

. >> legal experts like jonathan turley or alan dershowitz. >> i'm not saying obstruction of justice.eve comey when he talks about loretta lynch. you don't believe him when he says the president of the united states said to back off michael flynn. >> give it to him half the time. the immediamedia doesn't believ president when he speaks all the time. >> the most distressing part for me is an american citizen. you have the president of the united states meeting with the fbi director who was actually conducting an investigation of russian interference in the u.s. democracy. and not once in those sessions did the president express any interest or concern about the russian interference in our democracy. the only thing he wanted to do was pressure james comey to back off of him personally and politically. >> that is further proof he wasn't trying to interfere with the investigation. >> proof he didn't care. >> guys, jason miller, hilary rosen. thank you. chris. >>> on top of what you just heard, when the president asked to clear the room and ask james comey to drop the michael flynn investi

. >> sean: that's exactly what alan dershowitz said. and then this raises other questions.loretta lynch and her obvious obstruction, and did she put the kibosh on any potential indictment on hillary. hillary clinton's obvious felonies, mishandling, destroying of classified information? then, of course, we've got the foundation of hillary clinton and bill clinton giving 20% of american uranium to vladimir putin and getting kickback millions from people involved? >> there are so many questions that haven't been answered with regards to the uranium one deal, with regard to ukraine, with regard to haiti, with regard to the clinton foundation. none of them saw a specialo prosecutor. i think the big concern here is, especially for lawmakers, is what happens with loretta lynch. right there, we know that loretta lynch asked director comey to call the investigation a "matter" not an investigation, and furthermore, that there was an email that director comey obtained between two political figures that serve adjusted that loretta lynch was going to put the kibosh on any indictment aga

now it will be on obstruction, whereas a professional alan dershowitz said, how can the president be obstructing justice when he has the constitutional authority to dismiss the case or to order its dimensional instantly? if he's allowed, i say it's improper, he shouldn't have done it, but the evidence of obstruction of justice when he has the authority to dismiss it completely -- >> tucker: it's insane. the one thing that comey's testimony that struck me was there's probably a lot of regions he would have needed to recuse himself, i can't tell you what they are. >> charles: that's innuendo. >> tucker: it is the lowest form of character assassination. then it turns out according to the leaks in this meeting he didn't have the goods, he had no idea that he may have met with them a third time at some undisclosed place, it was only designed to hurt jeff sessions. the fbi director shouldn't act that way. >> charles: i think trump had a really bad day on the day of the comey testimony. i think comey had a really bad day as well. the idea that he was sort of slanted by the democrats will so

. >> laura: a lot of it, also, alan dershowitz tapped in on this on my radio show this week. he said something interesting. he said when he's like in march that's vineyard with all dim krats, mostly democrats, on the porch of this general store where he has luncheon, he has lunch, a sandwich couple times a week. he said all of the liberals who are his friends are just enraged that he's coming out and saying what he's saying about the obstruction of justice, no collusion, no obstruction when it comes to trump. they said we got to get him. well known lib brats brals, we have to get him, you're a liberal. he said i voted for hillary clinton but you have to beat him at the ballot box. that's the same thing with the journalists. they've become activists. they're participants in the political wars instead of journalists covering serious stories f they want to cover russia, fine, cover russia. they ought to cover what's happening inside of the government when we have, when we have intelligence officials leaking -- critical information or illegally leaking information, that it'sler f

. >> cynthia, from the legal perspective, alan dershowitz has powers and stop the investigation. we know back in the nixon case, congress threatened to impeach. and pressuring the fbi to stay the hell out of watergate and the burglary investigation. is this on par with that or not? >> i would think this is worse. alan is a very smart guy. i'm sure he is smarter than i am. he usually finds things where everybody is innocent. he is not the bellwether person to make the analysis on the prosecution case. this is worse than watergate in my view because it involves a foreign government injuring our voting process. i agree with comey on that. it strikes me as more important. >> this is not about a party going against a party. this is a foreign actor and intrusion. we break apart the layers and we peel back the interference of russia in the 2016 election season. michael flynn and his independent role of having those kind of off the book meetings with sergei kislyak and not telling the full truth to the vice president about it. they said he was canned because he lied on that fact. we have

one is obstruction potential investigation which is pretty solid legal footing for him as alan dershowitzas been arguing everywhere he gets the opportunity. the president can stop a probe whenever he wants. if he is involved, if he is not involved. he can pardon himself. he has extensive powers. that is why you see careful footing about possible investigation. he has a lot of authority in this area. he finds himself in the moment of the national healing. there is no question that the tone in washington and our politics has changed for the worse. everybody knows it. we experience it every day. the president is involved in that tone change. used it to his advantage. now is faced with the decision on his own. what do you think happens after this shooting ? >> we need to have a recognition for a reset in politics. the hate that peel uople to ral the troops is starting to sicken the body politic. the danger with the rhetoric of hate and people who demonize us recognize that. when it lodges in the mind of an unstable soul, it amounts in violence. that is what happened from the left. despite the

i'm not one point, professor alan dershowitz of harvard law ghoul seems to agree with him.ins us tonight. >> i don't agree with president trump on a great many of his agenda issues. i am a liberal democratic demoo voted enthusiastically for hillary clinton. but i think i'm a person of a principal and i realize that what the democrats are trying to do to president trump is exactly what republicans tried to do to hillary clinton. lock her up from a throw away the key. the very people who were pushing for donald trump to be investigated, indicted, and peach come would be on the other side of the issue if the shoe were on the other foot. if they had tried to expand the obstruction of justice statute or espionage statue and apply it to a democrat rather than the republican. we need a single standard of justice in this country. both sides are trying to criminalize too much. if you disagree with people, throw them out of office. don't elect them. the idea of charging your enemies with political crimes is too prevalent on both sides of the political aisle. >> tucker: what fascinate

remember, alan dershowitz, said there was not a case here when the president allegedly told call comey letting this go. what he is trying to find out is whether the president try to get them to shut down any aspect of the russia probe. remember, rogers at the nsa has testified the president never told him to do anything illegal or immoral," said he did not feel pressure to intervene. the fbi leak information regarding the president is outrageous, irrefutable, and illegal. this is not the kind of press the president wanted tonight. it's his 73rd birthday, he has his family here so writing that. and also just a moment ago returned to the white house with family members after going to the hospital where congressman scalise is. just recently tweeting, "scalise is in really tough shape but a real fighter. pray for scalise." >> juan: described by "the washington post" as a major turning point in the this investigation, no longer is it confined to russian modeling or coordination. >> dana: i think this is overriding by "the washington post" and the attempt to get more clicks. we already know

jeffrey toobin, who is still making his legal analysis come along comey whatlf exactly mirrored alan dershowitz has been saying for a month in regard to the powers of the president. it really was just amazing to watch cnn's reaction. host: thanks for the call. we have been checking out the editorial pages of newspapers around the country and sharing them with you, including this from "usa today." the headline -- "president trump's a liar -- now what?" all this adds to the credibility crisis surrounding the white house that has undermined the president's agenda at home, stein media ministrations efforts to recruit top talent, and frayed long-standing alliances abroad. whether trump is a criminal as well as a liar is a more complicated matter, one that will depend on legal definitions of obstruction of justice and additional evidence to be uncovered by special counsel robert mueller and congressional investigators." another line of questioning yesterday involved the clinton emails and robert mueller's involvement in that. hears that extent. -- here is that exchange. [video clip] >> let me go back

look at respected legal scholars like jonathan alan dershowitz.he only thing we heard about russia yesterday was the fact that president trump was proven right. three different times he was told by comey he was not under investigation, but still director comey would not lift the cloud. >> what do you make of that? that is about politics, not legality. ambassador, how do you respond? >> first of all, it is not the director's place to make the final legal judgment. he understands that. it would actually undermine his credibility if he said i conclude this as obstruction. he laid out the elements. not just the affirmative case that the president had asked him to drop an investigation and benefit a friend. that's corrupt intent. this is not intent crime. he explained why he did not do those things that jason is asking about because he didn't believe that he could trust the justice department and he did document it. he wrote a memo. he reported it to his internal staff and said we'll see how the investigation unfolds. >> norm, why didn't he take it to

it's not just karl rove republican who claims there is no obstruction alan dershowitz, a famously liberalsays you can't be accused of obstruction of justice, what you are doing is within your constitutional prerogatives. to end an investigation is entirely within the constitutional prerogative of the president. so there cannot be obstruction. >> i would remind everybody comey had a responsibility. if he believed there was a good chance this was obstruction of justice, he had a duty to go to his superior, road rosenstein. rod rosen. he didn't do that. >> what i think is interesting is that undermining mueller's credibility, you don't hear that from from republicans. >> john: panel, thank you so much. great conversation where we come back, trademarking this... ] bea. [woman] oh, why thank you. [burke] and we covered it, november sixth, two-thousand-nine. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,... isn't it time to let the real you shine through? maybe it's tim

and harvard law school professor emeritus alan dershowitz who says no, there's not.ay the role of silent judge on this, but i do have an impressive gavel. jeffrey toobin, you start. why do you believe you could see obstruction? >> no one is above the law. that's the message of watergate and american history at its best. the principle here is that obstruction of justice is just a law like any other and the president is bound to follow it. in 1974 the house judiciary committee voted articles of impeachment against richard nixon on the grounds he obstructed justice by using the fbi improperly. i don't know if donald trump is guilty of obstruction of justice, but i do know the facts that are public now suggest that an investigation is entirely appropriate. think about the context here. the fbi was looking at michael flynn, a grand jury was impanelled and donald trump went on a mission to stop that investigation. he approached the fbi director, james comey, repeatedly and including in the famous valentine's meeting he said let it go, let it go. and he knew, one could argu

jeffrey toobin, the cnn legal analyst and alan dershowitz we've asked whether this was a crime. what is he going to do? is he going to sit there in the white house oval office stunned and decide right then and there whether this goes to grand jury and he gets a true bill. so he goekz -- this is the way the fbi operates. all you have to do is report it to the fbi at that point, begin your evaluation of whether a crime has occurred and begin there. but you don't -- it's not the fbi mow dus operandi to breedly raeflt unless there's a violent crime. >> matthew, as steve mentioned, some very different viewpoints on james comey's behavior and whether or not the president actually cried to obstruct justice. what do you think? >> what i think it's important to remember here is that it's a bed rock principle of the rule of law that there be a -- that law enforcement be free to do its work free from political interference. it's essential that law enforcement do its work based on the facts and on the law. that's why traditionally through administrations of both parties there's been a stric

joining me now via webcam is alan dershowitz — who is a us lawyer and a former trump supporter.definition of obstruction, no crime has been committed by donald trump, could you explain why you say that? we have a very different constitutional system than the british. you have a director public prosecution who is independent. we have attorney general and fbi who work the president. —— who work for the president. —— who work for the president. i will give you an example. when president bush, the first, decided he wanted an investigation of the iran—contra matter, he certainly hardened the secretary of defence which ended the investigation. the president stifled the investigation. that is not an obstruction of justice. the investigation. that is not an obstruction ofjustice. when the president performs his constitutional duties, even the fire james comey, which he was entitled to do, orto james comey, which he was entitled to do, or to tell the head of the fbi, stop prosecuting someone, i don't want to see that happening, that would be constitutional as well. he didn't quite do tha

today in the aftermath of the testimony is that harvard professor in constitutional law scholar alan dershowitz said comey himself said it. there is no obstruction of justice. >> eboni: really want, he said is that it's not up to him to decide whether or not there was an obstruction of justice charge. that's a legal conclusion that ultimately robert miller, the new special counsel appointed, will have to ultimately decide but i agree with corey, and comey said a lot of the leaks have been flat out wrong. and he had assured the president and he had maintained the entire time that president trump personally was not under investigation but as far as obstruction, i said the entire time we don't know if there's anything there, but i don't see any evidence. >> eric: do you think the left, the democrats, left-wing media were disappointed in what they heard today? >> kat: i think so but i think they've been doing a very good job of hearing what they want to hear, which all people who are partisans are guilty of 2010. -- to an extent. acknowledging how high the standard has to be for proof of obstructio

as alan dershowitz has said, there's no criminal activity in the oval office.there has been none. do i like the way he conducts the presidency even though i voted for him? no, i despise it. do i like his policies? policies, but i do not like the way he acts as president of the united states. i wish i was still there so i could sit down with this guy and say, "mr. president, you shouldn't do the things you do. stop tweeting. stop saying the stupid things you say. you could be a great president. just be presidential." your twoketing, senators were both on the intel committee. what did you think of their questioning? caller: i didn't hear it, so i can't comment. host: that is martin in york, maine. next, let's hear what senator roy blunt, the republican from missouri, had to ask former director comey. blunt: when you were terminated from the fbi, i feel that you provided years of great service to the country. i also set i had significant questions over the last year about some of the decisions you made. the president had in terminated your service, would you still be , and your opini

some have said alan dershowitz for example that the president cannot be indicted, that the presidentf justice statutes because he has the authority to tell people not to do things. dreeben will be partly there to answer those sorts of questions. can he be indicted, can he be charged with statutory obstruction of justice, what is an abuse of power, does this rise to the level of an impeachable offense. so it seems that mueller is gearing up for complex set of litigation topics that he wants to be very well represented on. and for god sakes we know that he is now. >> and getting in the mind of your form eer colleague mueller why can woucan would he have al jaims comey to testify if crimi? >> there is no criminal offense against comey. the notion of comey as a leaker -- >> but if there is anything criminal that has transpired here. >> if the question relates to do comey do anything criminal in communicating his memos to the "new york times," i think the answer is no and your previous guest was spot on when he said this is really more of a whistleblower sharing of information which he is

alan dershowitz, a harvard law professor, an expert in the constitution, he agrees. take a listen. >> the president has the right to do that. comey acknowledges that. he says in the statement that historically, historically, presidents have done that to the justice department, but in the last few years, we've had a tradition of separation, but that tradition doesn't create crime. and remember also what the president could have done. he could have said to comey stop this investigation, i am now pardoning flynn. that's what president bush did. you cannot have obstruction of justice when the predent exercises his constitutional authority to pardon, his constitutional authority to fire the director of the fbi or constitutional authority to tell the director of the fbi who to prosecute, who not to prosecute. so let's get out of the weeds and look at the weed in question. liz: let me ask you, professor, when according to director comey, the president told him, quote, i hope you can let this go regarding the flynn investigation. you don't believe he was trying to influence

joining me now is alan dershowitz, thank you for joining us. >> jonathan truly is a bright lawyer. he is credit gourley wrong. he is nice to trump and his interpretation of the constitution. the justice department has twice ruled in a memo, then i just read this morning for the second or third time, stating clearly that the president cannot be indicted, prosecuted, and tried while serving in office. the only mechanism the constitution provides is that he could be impeached, and once impeached and removed from office, he can then be charged with a criminal trial. a sitting president cannot come according to the justice department, be tried, in the president would be making a terrible mistake by getting into the weeds of arguing the facts, rather than sticking with the conceptual constitution issues. mr. president, do not accept jonathan turley's advice. when it comes to this issue, he is not giving you good advice. >> melissa: is a your opinion that he's already gone to the weeds on that with his response? going on the legal response testimony. >> he always gets into the weeds, beca

. >> listen, go read alan dershowitz's column on the hill of what is obstruction of justice.he president of the united states has the power to pardon people, not constitutionally when he's executing his duties is it obstruction of justice. that's my point. >> this is about the administration of justice. you might want it to be about politics, but it is a criminal justice investigation, pure and simple. when you label things leaks, that aren't leaks, and when you try to insinuate bad motive to people who are investigating it, then you make something into a political investigation that doesn't have to be. >> and i would like to tell the panel and the viewers, if you want to know about why it's about leaks, and other things, just go online and google the talking points, the rnc talking points on the "washington post" story. it's online, talks about leaks, how it's political and on and on and on. and basically what we're hearing from a lot of folks. i'm glad to have you here to discuss this. we'll be right back. whoooo. looking for a hotel that fits... ...your budget? tripadvisor