Alan Dershowitz to Newsmax: Cuomo Case Short on Law, 'Going Nowhere'

New York Attorney General Letitia James' report on alleged sexual harassment by Gov. Andrew Cuomo is "completely one-sided," short on evidence, and will ultimately go "nowhere" in a court of law, legal expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax.

"He's the governor; that's his style: He tends to be friendly to people. If you don't like it, don't vote for him," Dershowitz said Wednesday on "Greg Kelly Reports," referring to a phone call between Cuomo and one of his accusers that did not show any violations of law. "But the idea of turning that into a crime or a tort, or using it as evidence of a crime or a tort, is worse than a joke. It's a clear violation of civil liberties.

"We make decisions on the basis of facts and evidence, and if this is the evidence, it's going nowhere," Dershowitz added.

James "disqualified herself from being taken seriously as an independent and neutral prosecutor" by saying that "women must be believed" when they accuse people of sexual harassment, according to Dershowitz.

"Totally and completely one-sided. When you have a law enforcement official saying, 'we should believe women,' that's like saying we should believe Jews, we should believe Blacks, we should believe whites, we should believe Eskimos," he continued. "You don't believe people based on gender or based on identity. You believe them based on the facts."

Dershowitz did acknowledge that the accusation of groping is the most egregious and criminally "serious," but he said it was made by an anonymous woman, keeping it from being fully vetted for its veracity, and Cuomo "denies it; he denies he ever touched anybody."

"The accusation about him putting his hand underneath somebody's blouse and cupping her breast, very serious, but it's anonymous — no opportunity to cross-examine," Dershowitz said. "We don't even know what questions were asked, if any, by those who conducted the report.

"The report should not be taken as gospel, as truth."

Dershowitz, author of "Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo," said "identity politics" and the skirting of due process is "destroying" American law.

"We just have to make sharp lines between what is criminal, what is tortious, what is just maybe bad behavior, what is something that maybe we wouldn't vote for somebody for," he continued. "But the Me Too movement is destroying our Constitution, and it's destroying our presumption of innocence. It's destroying due process. It's destroying the whole notion that you have to have evidence before you believe somebody.

"And the idea that we believe people because of gender is so dangerous because tomorrow it'll be race. The day after tomorrow, it'll be sexual preference. That's not the basis on which we make decisions. That's called identity politics."

Dershowitz also noted two other aspects of James' report to consider: the "vague notion" of a hostile work environment, and looking someone over in a suggestive way.

"This notion of 'he looked somebody up and down': That's in the eye of the beholder," Dershowitz said. "So he [Cuomo] should fight back. He should challenge it. A cross-examination is the best engine for determining truth. It goes back to the Magna Carta. And just because a woman says something doesn't mean that it's true and doesn't mean it should be believed.

"It should be investigated. It should be looked at. But facts are very difficult things, and they're tough things, and they're important things.

"Women do lie; many women tell the truth," Dershowitz continued. "Let's find out what's true, what's false, what's exaggerated. Let's not presume guilt and let's not jump to conclusions."

Dershowitz did say that this report does expose Cuomo as "a hypocrite" in light of his ''believe all women'' stance and call for a polygraph exam of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but a politician is an elected official and people in the United States should not be fired based on mere allegations without due process.

"I don't care if you were hired yesterday; it's wrong to be fired based on an accusation," he said. "It's wrong to be fired based on 10 accusations. The accusations have to be proved, and we know that when one person and two people make accusations, there tends to be pile-on — other people come forward."

Cuomo should not even be impeached based on this report, Dershowitz concluded.

"If a person has been elected by 3.5 million people, or Bill Clinton, or Donald Trump — there's a much higher threshold for impeachment," he said. "I know. I defended President Trump and Bill Clinton against impeachment charges, and I would, you know, feel the same way about Gov. Cuomo if he were to be impeached.

"There has to be proof to a high level of certainty that these events occurred and that they were sufficiently serious. Some of them are sufficiently serious, but they haven't been proved."

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