Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said he was “on the way to being persuaded” that the FBI acted properly when it worked with a confidential informant during its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
During an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday, Dershowitz was asked to respond to comments from House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who said the FBI was justified in its use of an informant, a rebuke of President Trump’s claims the FBI was politically motivated.
“I would rather see the inspector general look into this, ultimately the American people,” Dershowitz said. “Whenever you get any kind of an informant anywhere near a campaign, there has to be assurance that it was not political or partisan in nature. I’m about halfway persuaded now by Congressman Gowdy’s statement.”
Dershowitz went on to say he wants to “see the facts” for himself, but conceded he’s “on the way to being persuaded.”
Gowdy was one of a handful of lawmakers who attended a classified briefing with Justice Department and FBI officials about the use of the informant, later identified by media reports as Stefan Halper.
Dubbing the controversy “spygate,” Trump has claimed the bureau embedded a spy in his 2016 campaign and did so for “political reasons.”
But Gowdy said he doesn’t believe the FBI acted improperly in its use of a confidential source and noted it was Trump himself who said he wanted the FBI to investigate whether there was anyone in his campaign working with Russia.
Dershowitz, who has emerged as a frequent defender of the president’s, said he believed the FBI likely should have notified then-candidate Trump about its work with an informant, although he would not criticize the bureau for not doing so.
“They probably should have said to him, ‘look, we’re going to be checking out, the way you said we should, to see if there is anybody in your campaign. We’d like you to sign off on that,’” Dershowitz said. “Now, there may be a concern he would tell them. That’s a judgment call. I’m not going to criticize the FBI for not telling President-elect Trump or candidate Trump. But I think when you get involved in a presidential campaign you have to be Caesar’s wife. You have to lean over backwards to make sure no one can ever charge you with trying to influence the outcome of the election. Elections are just too important to American democracy.”
Gowdy’s comments were the first that appeared to shed some light on what Republicans gleaned from their bipartisan briefing last week with the FBI and Justice Department.
Republicans who attended have been relatively quiet about what they learned during the meeting, while Democrats in attendance said there is “no evidence” of a spy embedded in the campaign.
Gowdy’s remarks on the so-called spygate scandal also cast doubt on Trump’s claims about the FBI’s actions.
Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s chief legal analyst and former student of Dershowitz’s, suggested Wednesday that the South Carolina congressman’s honesty about the bureau’s use of a confidential source can be attributed to the fact that he is retiring from Congress.
“Gowdy, like Jeff Flake, is not running for re-election,” Toobin said. “So, he actually is telling the truth about what’s going on here.”
