Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz warned against rushing to criminalize former Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe over questions about whether he showed bias that delayed the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for weeks after he first received information about it.
"I think first of all the central question is we should have more investigations and fewer criminal charges," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Bill Hemmer on Wednesday. "I think we jump to criminalization much too quickly."
Americans should know the truth, he added, but the "inspector general is the right official to make that decision. We don't need special counsel and prosecutors."
The veteran lawyer also said it is time to say "enough with everybody is a criminal."
"Lock her, lock him up," Dershowitz said. "Let's find out what happened. That's why right from the beginning, I proposed a bipartisan, nonpartisan commission of inquiry into what happened in this last election."
The 2016 election "raises great problems for democracy on every side, on both sides, on all sides," he said. "I think we have to know the truth. Anything that gets us closer to the truth and away from lock her up and lock him up is a development that benefits the American people."
McCabe resigned Monday from his post as FBI deputy director, under pressure by FBI Director Christopher Wray, two people close to him told The New York Times.
Wray has also raised concerns about an upcoming inspector general report that reviews how the FBI handled the Clinton investigation.
Dershowitz, though, said McCabe was already scheduled to retire, but now questions remain about why he chose to leave early and if anyone pressured him.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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