Alan Dershowitz, President Donald Trump’s most prominent legal defender, has found a new outlet to share his views: Russian propaganda channel RT.

Dershowitz’s multiple appearances on RT over the past few months come as questions continue to swirl about the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia. Special counsel Robert Mueller submitted his final report on Russian interference last week, and Attorney General William Barr’s four-page synopsis cleared the campaign of collusion while also describing the multiple ways Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election. Trump and his supporters have celebrated the news, but have thus far refused to release the entirety of Mueller’s report, which is reportedly over 300 pages long.

Following Barr’s letter, Dershowitz appeared on RT to condemn the entire investigation. “It was a mistake to appoint a special counsel because there was no evidence of a crime,” Dershowitz said, calling for contempt of court proceedings to begin against those who lobbied for FISA warrants.

The Harvard professor emeritus referred to himself in his most recent appearance on RT as a “centrist, thoughtful, liberal Democrat,” while the RT host described Dershowitz as “the only person on the left that came through [the Mueller investigation] unscathed, and I would say enhanced.” He was joined by William Binney, a noted conspiracy theorist who has claimed that Russia did not hack Democratic emails, but that an internal leaker disseminated the emails.


In a separate appearance in February on RT, Dershowitz — who recently authored a book arguing against impeaching Trump — described Barr as a “really, really good person, and determined to do the right thing.” And in another appearance last month, Dershowitz said that he saw “no evidence” of any criminality regarding Russian interference in the United States, and that he was “very concerned” about prosecutorial “tactics” used against Trump campaign officials like former campaign chair Paul Manafort.

Dershowitz has appeared on RT multiple times already in 2019, and told ThinkProgress that he has always been treated fairly by the Russian propaganda organ.

“They have always been fair and have never censored anything I’ve said,” Dershowitz told ThinkProgress via email. “I have also been interviewed by al jazzera and other government controlled networks in China, as well as by Larry king on Russian tv [sic throughout]. I see no problem. How is RT different?”

Dershowitz, who has previously complained that he has been ostracized by friends on Martha’s Vineyard due to “McCarthyism,” added in his appearance on RT this week that he’s been “banned” by CNN.


Dershowitz’s multiple appearances point to RT efforts to host the most prominent pro-Trump voices nominally on the American left. In 2018, RT reached an agreement with Stephen Cohen, a contributing editor at The Nation — one of the flagship magazines on the American left — to republish his work.

Dershowitz, meanwhile, told ThinkProgress that he has no concerns about appearing on RT.

“I have no such fear,” he said. “I will continue to say what I think.”