Dershowitz: Trump Has a Much Bigger Problem Than Mueller

Michael Cohen's guilty plea. Paul Manafort's conviction. The granting of immunity to longtime Trump allies. Last week provided one big headline after another in regard to the legal trouble swirling around President Trump, and Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz sees a clear takeaway: Trump's biggest legal worry isn't the Robert Mueller investigation, it's the one underway by federal prosecutors in New York. "I think he has constitutional defenses to the investigation being conducted by Mueller," Dershowitz told ABC News over the weekend. "But there are no constitutional defenses to what the Southern District is investigating. So, I think the Southern District is the greatest threat."

In fact, "the special counsel is the least important element in this investigation," Dershowitz said. The deals struck for immunity by Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and by David Pecker, CEO of the parent company of the National Enquirer, came out of New York's Southern District, notes the Washington Post. Prosecutors there are looking into whether the Trump Organization violated campaign finance laws with payments of hush money to two women after alleged affairs with Trump. Dershowitz, however, says the organization's treasurer, not Trump himself, would seemingly be at fault there. As all this unfolds, Dershowitz has four-pronged advice for the president: "Don’t fire, don’t pardon, don’t tweet and don’t testify." He adds that if Trump had abided by those rules, "he’d be in less trouble than he is today." (More President Trump stories.)