Alan Dershowitz Takes Heat Over Complaints That Paul Manafort Was Wrongly Jailed

Alan Dershowitz Takes Heat Over Complaints That Paul Manafort Was Wrongly Jailed

Over the past year, famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz has become one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent and staunchest defenders when it comes to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling and potential coordination with the Trump campaign. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that the retired Harvard law professor was critical of a federal judge’s decision to send former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to jail over charges that he tampered with witnesses.

During a Saturday morning Fox & Friends appearance, Dershowitz complained about Manafort being incarcerated for violating the terms of his bail arrangement, claiming that Manafort was joining the ranks of unfairly jailed minorities and poor people.

“There are thousands of people today that are in jail before they’ve been convicted of any crime,” Dershowitz told the curvy couch crew. “Many of them minorities. Many of them poor. Now Paul Manafort joins them based on an indictment based on an indictment. And indictments are not supposed to have any real impact.”

Dershowitz’s Saturday morning comments echo what he said on Friday following the Manafort news. In a CNN segment in which he was paired off with legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, Dershowitz stated that Manafort’s incarceration “undercuts the presumption of innocence, was “punitive” and that we don’t know whether Manafort actually tampered with witnesses. He further stated that grand juries shouldn’t exist after being reminded that they handed down the new charges, not the judge.

In the wake of his Fox News appearance, media figures and attorneys took Dershowitz to task for his misleading remarks regarding Manafort’s bail revocation and subsequent incarceration.

Breakfast Media’s Andrew Feinberg noted that the judge didn’t decide on Manafort’s guilt but did point out why she had to revoke his bail.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti claimed that Dershowitz knew the answer to his own questions and was being purposely misleading to the public.

Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere straight up said what Dershowitz was saying was “not true.”

ShareBlue’s Eric Boehlert accused Dersh of being dense.

The Atlantic’s David Frum noted that while De4rshowitz was right to state that many American’s are unfairly incarcerated because they’re too poor to afford bail, others like Manafort are detained because they’ve violated terms of their bail.

Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the founder/publisher of Contemptor and a contributor to The Daily Beast. He was previously the Cable News Correspondent for Mediaite and prior to starting Contemptor, he worked on the editorial staff of PoliticusUSA. During that time, he had his work quoted by USA Today and BBC News, among others. Justin began his published career as a political writer for 411Mania. He resides in St. Louis, MO with his wife and pets.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *