- Joined
- Oct 13, 2012
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Cooper: Lanny Davis is saying that Michael Cohen is unburdened. He doesn’t care about immunity. He wants to speak the truth. Can he just speak the truth?
Toobin: Sure, yeah.
Cooper: I mean, he’s raising money for people to pay him to speak the truth and fund him. Can’t he just hold a press conference?
Toobin: He could. I mean, he is also under the thumb of prosecutors at this point. And they may not want him to go public at this point. I mean they may want, they may be continuing their investigation, they might not want his story out there. That’s possible.
Cooper: You mean the Mueller prosecutors…
Toobin: The Mueller prosecutors or, I mean particularly the Southern District because that’s where is case is.
Cooper: Right.
Toobin: So, I don’t know what the byplay has been between Cohen and the prosecutors. But certainly as a legal matter, there is nothing stopping him from telling his story right now.
Cooper: Professor Dershowitz, you’ve said that the White House, um, that the assertion that White House made today that the president committed no crime here….I mean, do you, do you think that Michael Cohen committed a crime here?
Dershowitz: Well, it all depends. These campaign finance laws are so confusing that even Justice Scalia with the help of four brilliant law clerks said he couldn’t figure them out. For example, a president, or a candidate, is entitled to make millions of dollars in contributions to his own campaign. And if he himself—if President Trump paid the hush money---hush money is not illegal—it would not be crime. If he authorized or directed his lawyer to do it….
Cooper: If he did it through his corporation…
Dershowitz: No no no, put aside the corporation for a second. That’s clearly not….
Cooper: No, but that’s how the money was paid back to Cohen.
Dershowitz: Well, you know the question is: what was his state of mind at the time IF he directed the person to do it. If he directed his lawyer to do it, and if it came from his own money, that would be lawful.
Cooper: Right, but it didn’t.
Dershowitz: But if Cohen himself made the contribution….(responding to Cooper) well, we’ll wait and see. If Cohen himself made the contribution, that would be a crime by Cohen. But that wouldn’t make Trump an unindicted co-conspirator because you can have a crime committed by Cohen, but even if he’s directed to do it by Trump, if Trump had the authority to do it—and it really depends on where the money came from, it depends on a variety of issues. It’s extraordinarily complicated. And, complicated laws….
Cooper: Ok but, but I’m asking you, if it came from the Trump Organization…you seem to avoiding what Cohen himself has said, which is….
Dershowitz: If it came from the Trump Organization corporate contributions…
Toobin: Can I answer your question in one word?
Dershowitz: Well we know there are contributions that are made by corporations and we know that the Supreme Court has had a terrible time figuring all of this out. And you don’t use complex, subtle, confusing criminal law as the basis either for charging or impeaching a president. That’s why people are mostly fine with violating these very, very complex laws.
Toobin: Ok, Alan, you know, it’s very, it’s helpful to Donald Trump to think this is all that complicated. It’s not that complicated. Um, did Michael Cohen commit a crime? You bet he did. Let’s think about why campaign finance laws exist at all. Right? The reason they exist is that so we know who finances campaigns....
Dershowitz: Sure.
Toobin:…and we know what they spend the money on.
Dershowitz: Sure.
Toobin: The Trump campaign and Donald Trump lied about both of those things on an incredibly important subject. Because they wanted to spend the money to help Donald Trump get elected president. And they wanted to keep secret how they were spending the money because the public might not have liked $250,000 spent in hush money for women that Donald Trump apparently slept with.
Dershowitz: That’s absolutely right, that’s absolutely right, but…
Toobin: That’s a CRIME.
Dershowitz: …but tell me….well no, no. Let’s stop there. It’s a crime under certain circumstances, and it’s not a crime under other circumstances. A president would have the right to do the following. He’d have a right to pay the hush money, keep it secret until the next reporting time, which may be after the election, direct his lawyer to pay the money…none of that would be a crime! If, in fact, he failed to make the report….
Toobin: But he didn’t do that!
Dershowitz: We don’t know, we don’t know what he did. You say Cohen committed a crime, an….
Toobin: Yeah, so does Cohen!
Cooper: COHEN said he committed a crime, and the judge said he committed a crime, but…
Dershowitz: I understand that, but a lot of people….
Cooper: You seem to be avoiding, you don’t believe….you don’t believe that the Trump Organization was billed by Michael Cohen and that the Trump Organization paid back Michael Cohen?
Dershowitz: There is a dispute about the facts. The president said today that he paid the money out of his own pocket. If that’s not true….
Cooper: Well he, he just said that he paid….right.
Dershowitz: And if it was a corporate contribution, that’s very different. Look, the law is so unclear after Citizens United….
Cooper: So if it was a corporate contribution, you’re saying that is a problem.
Dershowitz: Of course…well, look. It’s ALL a problem. I’m not here to defend Trump. It’s all a problem. It’s a problem, because....
Cooper: Well, the president is saying it’s not a problem, and…right…
Dershowitz: ….lying is a problem. It’s a problem. I’m not here to defend the president. I’m here to say that it’s a complicated issue, and that if a candidate makes a contribution on his own to pay hush money, that sounds terrible….
Cooper: But you…you…
Dershowitz: ….it's a political sin. I’m here to say that you have to distinguish between political sin and federal felonies, and I think a lot of the commentary so far has failed to do that, and I….
Cooper: You’ve compared this to jaywalking.
Dershowitz: …think it’s very important to make sure…
Cooper: You’ve said that…
Dershowitz: Let me tell you what I compared to jaywalking.
Cooper: You’ve said that all candidates for president violate campaign election (sic) laws.
Dershowitz: Let me tell you what I said. Don’t tell me what I said, let me tell you what I said. I said that failing…
Cooper: Well I have the quote right here…
Dershowitz:…to report. Well, yeah. Failing to report a lawful contribution is the political equivalent of jaywalking. Every campaign….
Cooper: You said candidates violate election laws all the time.
Dershowitz: Every political campaign does that all the time, and they should be punished for it, and they should be held to account. By the way,…
Toobin: And how many of those…Alan, let me talk for a second for God’s sakes.
Dershowitz:…it’s not a crime for the candidate to do it, it’s a crime for the campaign to do it.
Toobin: I mean, so (unclear)…”everybody does it”.
Dershowitz: Yeah.
Toobin: How many campaigns do it with $130,000 to one woman and $150,000 to another woman to… in hush money about sex?
Dershowitz: Nothing illegal about that.
Toobin: eee uhhh….
Dershowitz: Nothing illegal about that! Nothing illegal about that! It’s perfectly okay!
Toobin: If it comes from the campaign?
Dershowitz: Well that’s the issue. That was the issue in the Edwards case, the jury refused to convict in the Edwards case. That was the issue in other cases. This is the most complex array…
Toobin: Ugh! It’s not that complicated!
Dershowitz:…of laws, regulations and rules. But the simple part of it, the simple and most important part of it, is a candidate may pay for any reason….
Cooper: Right but you’re saying out of his own pocket…
Dershowitz:… any amount of money for his campaign.
Cooper: …but there’s no evidence the president paid out of his own…
Dershowitz: (adjusting earpiece) He may do it to help himself get elected, he may do it to prevent embarrassment…
Toobin: But even, even if he….
Dershowitz: …to him and his family…
Toobin:…all right but….
Dershowitz: …and if that’s what happened, then there’s no crime here.
Toobin: But even if he does it out of his own pocket, he has to report that he did it out of his own pocket. And that was not done here.
Dershowitz: That’s exactly right, and that is a violation. That IS A VIOLATION!
Toobin: Okay, so….!
Dershowitz: And it should be regarded as a MINOR violation. Certainly not an impeachable offense to fail to report a lawful contribution…
Toobin: Willful, I mean….
Dershowitz: You find me any case where failure…
Toobin: Alan,….
Dershowitz: …to report….willful??? It has to be willful, first of all…
Toobin: Of course, yeah…
Dershowitz: But second of all, failure to report is a crime AGAINST THE CAMPAIGN, NOT against the candidate! You show me any case where a person was actually charged criminally and sentenced to prison for failure to report an entirely lawful campaign contribution.
Toobin: You know what Alan, I don’t have a lot of…
Dershowitz: This is taking existing law and targeting somebody who none of us like and who none of us voted for, and that’s the most dangerous thing you can do in the criminal law—stretch it to target somebody….
Toobin: I know (sarcastic).
Dershowitz:…who is unpopular with those who are doing the stretching. That’s what I’m proposing.
Toobin: (sarcastic) It’s just, it’s a heartbreaking treatment of Donald Trump, who is so sympathetic…
Dershowitz: It’s not heartbreaking to him, it’s heartbreaking to…
Cooper: I guess, I guess, but I mean Jeff, Jeff,…
Toobin: It’s not!
Dershowitz: …to civil libertarians (adjusts earpiece) all over the United States because this law could be used…
Cooper:…nobody has forced the President of the United States to repeatedly lie about this time and time again…to lie to…
Dershowitz: It’s not a crime to lie…
Cooper: Well I’m not saying it’s a crime, Professor. I’m just saying that the President of the United States…
Dershowitz: Okay! I’m only saying it’s not a crime.
Cooper: Okay, I’m talking now and I’m saying it’s really sleazy! It’s sleazy that Michael Cohen lied…
Dershowitz: I’m not disputing that. (adjusts earpiece)
Cooper: …repeatedly about it publicly. That he got his own attorney to come on television and either lie about it knowingly or…or accidentally. And it’s sleazy that Sarah Sanderss…that he allegedly seemed to lie to Sarah Sanders about it…
Dershowitz: You’re agreeing with me. You’re, you’re AGREEING with me!
Cooper:….and he lied to everybody.
Toobin: Alan!
Dershowitz: You’re agreeing with me.
Toobin: Alan, let me talk for just a a minute.
Cooper: Alan, you don’t have to talk all the time. Let Jeff talk for a second.
Toobin: Alan, it is undoubtedly true that sleaziness is not a violation of federal criminal law. Sleaziness is in the eye of the beholder, and I don’t think there is any doubt that there was sleazy behavior here. But it is misleading to say that federal campaign laws are so complicated that you can’t know what they are. The whole reason why they paid this money in this convoluted way was to avoid the the the the….was to break the law because they knew how bad it would look! So it is not a terribly complicated story. It is a willful violation of the law.
And you think this makes Dershowitz look good lmao?! look at some of this stuff...
Dershowitz: We don’t know, we don’t know what he did. You say Cohen committed a crime, an….
Toobin: Yeah, so does Cohen!
Cooper: COHEN said he committed a crime, and the judge said he committed a crime, but…
Dershowitz: I understand that, but a lot of people….
