Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Robert Mueller.
- Alan Dershowitz predicted that the special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election will be "politically very devastating" for President Donald Trump.
- Harvard law professor Dershowitz said he did not believe that the investigation would result in criminal charges.
- Dershowitz is known as a Trump frequent defender and Trump has spoken highly of him, but he has also criticized some of the president's policies.
Robert Mueller's Russia investigation will be "politically very devastating" for President Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and frequent Trump defender, has predicted.
"I think the report is going to be devastating to the president," Dershowitz told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "And I know that the president's team is already working on a response to the report."
Dershowitz said he doubted that the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election would result in criminal charges, but said that the results could still devastate Trump.
"When I say devastating, I mean it's going to paint a picture that's going to be politically very devastating," he said.
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Dershowitz said it was unlikely to result in charges because "collusion is not criminal" - a defense that Trump and other supporters have used to defend the president.
But legal experts say that while there is no "crime of collusion" there are many crimes that are related closely related, including conspiracy to defraud the US.
ABC News
Alan Dershowitz spoke to ABC News about Robert Mueller's Russia investigation on Sunday.
But Dershowitz said he did not believe that Trump would be charged with conspiring to "cooperate with an attempt to defraud the US government."
"It's too much of a stretch," he said.
He predicted that Mueller is "going to lay out the facts, leave it to Congress to decide whether that rises to the level of an impeachable offense."
Dershowitz said it was a "very hard question" to predict when the report would be made public as Matthew Whitaker, Trump's new acting attorney general, has criticized the investigation. "It will be made public probably with a response alongside," he said.
Trump has recognized Dershowitz as someone who often defends him. He tweeted in 2017 that Dershowitz's appearance on "Fox and Friends" was a "must watch" as he talked about the Mueller investigation.
In an interview with The New York Times in December 2017, Trump called Dershowitz "amazing."
Dershowitz has previously given blunt assessments of accusations against Trump. In 2017, he said that reports that Trump had shared highly classified information with two Russian officials in the White House "the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president."
He also said that multiple investigations into Trump's finances in New York are "the greatest threat" to Trump, because he has "constitutional defenses" against the Mueller investigation.