Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz revealed on Monday what he is most interested to see in special counsel Robert Mueller's report.
The Justice Department says a redacted version of Mueller’s roughly 400-page report would be released Thursday, at which time Dershowitz divulged how he plans to go about reading it.
“I'm going to skim quickly the Russian matter because I will conclude probably there is no evidence there,” Dershowitz said Monday on Fox News.
“The most interesting thing will be to look at obstruction of justice,” Dershowitz said. “The obstruction case is based largely on what the president said openly in tweets and press conferences.”
Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary of the report last month that said Mueller did not find the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but also did not make a final determination on whether Trump obstructed justice.
Dershowitz has been critical of Mueller for his hesitation on the obstruction question, although Barr wrote in his summary that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined there was insufficient proof to establish such a crime.
“Shame on Mueller for not having the guts to come to a decision one way or the other,” Dershowitz said on Fox News after Barr’s summary was released.
“The job of the prosecutor is to decide, yes or no. Make a decision. And then if you say yes, you indict. If you say no, you shut up,” Dershowitz said. “You don't go on and say, no, we're not going to indict, but let me tell you all the evidence that might have led us to indict.”
Dershowitz has also argued against the report being released at all on there being “no legal basis” for Barr to hand it over to Congress. Despite that, Barr has been working with Mueller’s team since around the time the summary was released to prepare a redacted copy of the document.
The House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of subpoenaing Barr to release the entire report, but Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said he wouldn’t issue a subpoena until the committee gets a chance to view the version that Barr is set to release Thursday.
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team is working on crafting a counter-report to Mueller’s findings. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the counter-report would likely focus on combating any potential obstruction of justice claims.