Mueller’s Grand Jury Racially, Ethnically Stacked Against Trump – OpEd
By Jim Kouri
Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz in an exclusive on-air interview told New York City’s WABC Radio Host Rita Cosby Friday that the new District of Columbia federal grand jury impaneled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is bad news for President Trump, not because of its existence, but because of where the jury chamber is located… Washington, D.C.
Mueller was selected to probe the allegations made against President Donald Trump and some of his family members and staff that they colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin and/or his minions to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Despite incredibly scarce amount of evidence — and mostly relying on politically-driven conjecture — the Democrats and a few Republicans continue their quest to “nail the President.”
“It [the location of the grand jury] gives the prosecutor a tremendous tactical advantage… the case now can be brought not in Northern Virginia, which is a swing area, sometimes Democrat, sometimes Republican… but the District of Columbia, which is always solidly Democratic and has an ethnic and racial composition that might be very unfavorable to the Trump Administration,” the world-renowned Harvard Law School professor said on Rita’s show.
When asked by Cosby if he thinks this geographic move stacks the deck against the President, Dershowitz definitively says, “Yes, I do.”
He added, “I think it’s a tactical move designed to send a message that if the prosecutor decides to prosecute, he will have a real advantage with the jury pool where the case will be held.
Below is a verbatim transcript from the key section:
ALAN DERSHOWITZ EXCLUSIVE
00:00 Rita – You talked about the new grand jury being impaneled in Washington D.C., with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller overseeing it. What’s your sense of the fact that now there is this second grand jury – there was one of course in Virginia, now we know of the existence of this second one?
00:16 Dershowitz – Well, the second one is important because of where it is. It gives the prosecutor the power to indict in the District of Columbia, which is a district that is heavily Democratic, and would have a jury pool very unfavorable to Trump and the Trump Administration. So it gives the prosecutor a tremendous tactical advantage. If he wants to bring a case against anybody in the Administration, the case now can be brought not in Northern Virginia, which is a swing area, sometimes Democrat, sometimes Republican, but the District of Columbia, which is always solidly Democratic and has an ethnic and racial composition that might be very unfavorable to the Trump Administration, so I see the significance not so much that he impaneled the grand jury – you have to impanel the grand jury to get subpoena power – but where he impaneled it.
01:13 Rita – That’s an interesting point. Do you believe that it kind of stacks the deck against the President by doing that?
01:18 Dershowitz – Yes. Yes, I do. I think it’s a tactical move designed to send a message that if the prosecutor decides to prosecute, he will have a real advantage with the jury pool where the case will be held, provided there is jurisdiction in the District of Columbia, and there would be generally jurisdiction almost anywhere.
