Dershowitz: Cohen Doesn’t Understand the Difference Between Something that May Be Wrong and Something Illegal

EXCERPT:

DERSHOWITZ: "Well, what Cohen doesn’t seem to understand is the difference between something that may be wrong and something that may be illegal. Reasonable people could disagree about whether it’s wrong to pay hush money to somebody to stop them from disclosing alleged impropriety sexually. Reasonable people can say that's wrong or right. It is not illegal. A presidential candidate under the law could spend billion dollars of his own money to do anything in the campaign. For example, if a presidential candidate took cash, literally cash, and went and paid one of these women and said, 'I’m paying you not to disclose what happened and I’m doing it in order to help myself be elected president,' that would not be a crime. A president is entitled to make campaign contributions to his own campaign. And the only issue is whether — if he did it at all — he did it properly. And to the extent he authorized — that he authorized Cohen to make the payments, that makes them payments by the president which makes them legal.”