Carlson: Professor, thanks a lot for coming on. The Manafort story seems pretty cut and dry. He was convicted of tax evasion. It sounds like he did it. I don't think many people are surprised. Cohen, however: part of this guilty plea concerns money that he moved apparently from Trump's accounts to a woman who had alleged sexual contacts with Trump. That's a very common scenario among famous people as you know. We've seen a lot of that in the last year: people paying off women who say they had sexual contact with the affluent person. Is that illegal? How is that a crime?
Dershowitz: By itself it's not a crime, and if the president had paid it directly it wouldn't be a crime. The allegation here is that it was Cohen who paid it---who made a campaign contribution which he didn't report---at the direction of the president. Of course, some stations are already playing the funeral music for President Trump, but this is much more complicated and much more nuanced. First of all, the crime itself is very very vague. They tried to put John Edwards, the former presidential candidate on trial and of course, that ended in acquittal. Second, it really depends completely on the credibility on Cohen. Remember, as Judge Ellis said, when they squeeze people like Cohen or Manafort, they squeeze them not only to sing but sometimes to compose. It's very easy to embellish the story. Let's assume, hypothetically, it's true that he paid the money and it was designed to impact the election. All he has to do is say, "and the president directed me to do it." That's the kind of embellishment that people put on a story when they want to avoid dying in prison. The prosecutor says, "you have two choices. You can die in prison or you can give me a story that I can use to go and get the president." I'm not suggesting that happened here. But the risk of that happening is what Judge Ellis talked about in the Manafort case. We may see that at work here. So we're a long way from tolling the bells for this administration. It's a bad day, it's a negative day, but not a fatal one.
Carlson: I'm still confused. If you're running for office, and someone comes to you and says, "give me money or I will humiliate you in public", and you do give that person money, you instruct your lawyer to give that person money, that's a campaign donation?
Dershowitz: Not if you make it yourself. But if somebody else pays the money in order to influence the outcome of the election, it is technically, perhaps, a violation of the election laws. That's what they tried to get Edwards on. It didn't work. They had an acquittal and a hung jury, and they never tried him again. But violation of election laws is regarded as like jaywalking in the realm of things about elections. Every candidate violates the election laws when they run for president. Usually they pay a fine. Here they are trying to elevate this to an impeachable offense or a felony against the president. Look, they may name the president as an unindicted co-conspirator. They did that with Nixon. Even back then, I complained about that because naming someone as an unindicted co-conspirator is very unfair because they have no opportunity to defend themselves. So this is the beginning of a story that will unravel over time but it's not nearly as deadly or lethal as some as portrayed it as being.