Retired Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz says the idea Michael Cohen is sitting in solitary confinement because he won’t sign papers committing not to publish a book is unfathomable.
Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, returned to prison on July 11 because he refused to sign papers saying no media or publishing of a book.
“This is the United States of America. We don’t send people to solitary confinement because they want to write a book,” Dershowitz, an advocate for the First Amendment, said Tuesday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s “Spicer & Co.”
“Nelson Mandela was sent to solitary confinement … Martin Luther King was sent to jail where he wrote his great letter, but in the United States of America to send somebody to … whether you like them or hate them, the idea that he’s handcuffed and taken to solitary because he won’t sign a form that says I’m not going to write my book. First Amendment has to have some impact here,” Dershowitz said.
“I’m so worried about what’s going on with our Constitution. You don’t have to pick sides. … what I see is our liberty, our constitutional rights being endangered by the weaponization of our criminal justice system.”
Cohen, who was released to home confinement in late May due to coronavirus concerns, was sentenced in 2018 to a three-year federal prison term following guilty pleas to a number of financial and political crimes.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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