A judge's decision to revoke the bail of Paul Manafort and put the former Trump campaign chairman behind bars is "an outrage," renowned civil-rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax TV on Friday.
"I think it was an outrage to put Manafort in jail [and] I'm no fan of his," Dershowitz said in an interview with Newsmax's "America Talks Live."
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"I have been arguing for the 50 years of my career that we should not be denying bail to poor people, rich people or anyone in between, before they've been convicted of any crime. These are presumed innocent people.
"Whether they're a young black man in prison or an older white man in prison, it's a mistake. It's in violation of the spirit of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution to start locking people up based on accusations rather than on proof of crime."
Hours earlier, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman heard allegations that Manafort and one of his associates had attempted to tamper with witnesses in a criminal case brought against him last October involving alleged conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and other charges.
Manafort appeared in the Washington, D.C., court Friday after special counsel Robert Mueller asked a judge to revoke his pretrial release conditions. Manafort pleaded not guilty to witness tampering, but Berman revoked his bail and ordered him locked up.
Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus, said he was concerned that criminal charges like those against Manafort sometimes sway defendants to embellish the facts of the case in a bid to get themselves out of trouble.
"These are crimes that are used to make people not only sing but compose," Dershowitz said.
Manafort has been indicted in both Washington and Virginia on a series of mostly financial-related charges, including conspiring to launder money and defraud the U.S. Before Friday, he had been on home confinement in Alexandria, Virginia, and was required to wear an electronic monitoring device.
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