President Barack Obama asked the FBI to investigate a person following a request from billionaire financier George Soros, according to constitutional expert and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz made the claim in a Feb. 16 interview with Breitbart News, when discussing the constitutional authority of a president to control the Justice Department.
“President Obama personally asked the FBI to investigate somebody on behalf of George Soros, who was a close ally of his,” he said.
Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor emeritus, said he was “not prepared to disclose” the information he possessed on the matter, but noted it’s “going to come out in a lawsuit in the near future.”
“I have in my possession the actual 302 form which documents this issue,” he said, referring to an FBI form that summarizes an interview conducted by the bureau. “And it will, at the right time, come out. But I’m not free to disclose it now because it’s a case that’s not yet been filed.”
Obama’s office and Soros’s Open Society Foundations didn’t respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Could but Shouldn’t
Dershowitz made his comments in relation to President Donald Trump’s recent comments on Twitter criticizing the sentencing of his former campaign associate Roger Stone.
“We’ve seen this kind of White House influence on the Justice Department virtually in every Justice Department,” Dershowitz commented.
“The difference is, this president is much more overt about it. He tweets about it. President Obama whispered about it.”
While he criticized such an influence, he also said it isn’t unconstitutional.
“Let’s be very clear about the constitutionality. The president could make a decision to really control the Justice Department. He could decide who to prosecute, who not to prosecute. He shouldn’t do it. It hasn’t been done since Thomas Jefferson.”
The alleged request from Soros “is not unusual,” he said.
“People whisper to presidents all the time. Presidents whisper to [the] Justice Department all the time. It’s very common. It’s wrong, whoever does it, but it’s common, and we shouldn’t think that it’s unique to any particular president.”
Dershowitz was a defense lawyer for Trump in the recent impeachment trial, in which the president was acquitted of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
The Stone Case
Stone was convicted of lying to and obstructing Congress and witness tampering. Prosecutors recommended 7 to 9 years in prison for him, in large part based on their claim that he threatened a witness, which calls for a higher penalty in the Justice Department’s sentencing guidelines.
The defense argued that Stone’s comments to his longtime associate Randy Credico were made as a joke.
“Stone’s indecorous conversations with Randy Credico were many things, but here, in the circumstances of this nearly 20-year relationship between eccentric men, where crude language was the norm, ‘prepare to die [expletive]’ and conversations of similar ilk, were not threats of physical harm, ‘serious acts’ used as a means of intimidation, or ‘the more serious forms of obstruction’ contemplated by the Guidelines,” his lawyers wrote in Stone’s sentencing memorandum (pdf).
Credico said during the trial he was worried the comments could encourage somebody to get violent. He later wrote to the court that he didn’t think Stone physically threatened him, arguing the veteran conservative political strategist and lobbyist should get probation.
The Justice Department eventually intervened in the case, calling the original sentencing recommendation “excessive.” The prosecutors then withdrew from the case.
The Justice Department told media that the department didn’t consult with the White House about Stone’s sentencing and that the decision was made before Trump’s comments on Twitter.
Stone, who has had a working relationship with Trump going back decades, was fired from Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign in August 2015.
“I really don’t want publicity seekers who want to be on magazines or who are out for themselves,” Trump told The Washington Post at the time. “This campaign is not about them. It’s about victory and making America great again.”
Stone continued to support and assist the campaign after being fired.
