WOLF: If Trump has done nothing wrong, why should he be concerned about people flipping?
DERSHOWITZ: "It is certainly possible for people who have done nothing wrong to get caught up. You can be prosecuted for perjury for telling the truth, if somebody tells a different truth." pic.twitter.com/BLHRIQSwdF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 19, 2018
Attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Thursday that President Trump should be prepared for his closest associates to turn on him and cooperate with investigators.
“Assume your best friends will flip,” Dershowitz, who is also an opinion contributor for The Hill, said on CNN.
“I think the president has to assume that his closest friends, his greatest associates, the people he trusts the most, if exposed to the risk of life imprisonment, will flip,” he said. “That has to be his working assumption.”
The lawyer and Harvard emeritus professor said that even those closest to the president could flip if prosecutors exert enough legal pressure on them – including Michael Cohen, a longtime personal lawyer and confidant of Trump.
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Dershowitz’s comments fall in line with those of Jay Goldberg, another former lawyer to Trump, who told The Wall Street Journal this week that he advised Trump not to trust Cohen to fully protect him.
Federal prosecutors revealed last week that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months.
That revelation came after FBI agents raided his home and office in search of records related to payments made to two women who have alleged having affairs with Trump years ago.
Cohen has repeatedly insisted that he remains loyal to the president, and would go to every length to protect him. But Goldberg told The Wall Street Journal that he warned Trump that on a scale of 1 to 100, where 100 represents full protection of the president, Cohen “isn’t even a 1.”
“Michael will never stand up [for you],” Goldberg said he told Trump during a phone call last week.