He says that Trump was right that no special counsel should have been appointed, since there was no probable cause for one. And he’s been saying that from the start:

First of all, the president’s 100% right. There never should have been an appointment of special counsel here. There was no probable cause at that point to believe that crimes had been committed. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that crimes have been committed by the president. As I’ve said from day one, there should have been a special investigative commission, non-partisan appointed by Congress, with subpoena power to look into the role of Russia and trying to influence American elections and do something about preventing it in the future. Instead of starting out with finger-pointing and trying to criminalize political difference behind the closed doors of a grand jury.

By taking this position, Dershowitz is in agreement with another stellar legal mind, Andrew C. McCarthy. Of course, the big difference is that Dershowitz is a liberal and McCarthy is on the right. So McCarthy never got invited to those parties in the first place.

Here is a clip that fascinates me. It’s of Dershowitz and CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin talking about Dershowitz’s position on this issue, as well as other issues connected with Trump. It is worth watching the whole thing, but it is the last minute (which I highlight here) in which Dershowitz particularly shines. This isn’t just about Derhsowitz and Toobin, either. It’s about old-school liberals vs. new. It’s generational, because (as is revealed in the clip) Toobin was once a student of Dershowitz’s:

The statue of Justice carries balancing scales, but she is also blindfolded. The blindfold is one of the most important elements in justice, and it doesn’t mean that justice is unable to see. It means justice is impartial and is applied in the same manner to all, or at least that’s the goal. That’s what Dershowitz is saying here, and he is adding that he has been consistent about that and implies that someone like Toobin looks at justice with a political bias.

I’m not making it up about Dershowitz’s lack of invitations to liberal parties, either. Dershowitz is quoted in this article as having said the following [hat tip: Althouse]:

“None of my liberal friends invite me to dinner anymore,” [Dershowitz] said. “Thanks to Donald Trump, I’ve lost seven pounds. I call it the Donald Trump diet.”

That’s obviously a joke; Dershowitz is trying to laugh at the situation and to make us laugh too. But it veils something quite sinister, which is the universal social ostracization on the part of the left towards a former colleague who has done nothing more than be consistent on a point of legal policy, which puts him in agreement with Trump (and some on the right) about something. That his liberal former dinner hosts/friends happen to disagree with him is something they see as reason to break old bonds and treat him like a social pariah.

Whether it’s literally true about the drying up of the dinner party invitations (and I suspect it is), it is no surprise at all that this has happened even to an old liberal warhourse like Dershowitz. Anyone who is a liberal (or former liberal) and takes a stand that puts him/her in tune with the right finds out soon enough that many liberals will self-righteously—and with the idea that it is their minds that are open and tolerant—go the shunning route and/or the insult route.

[NOTE: I’m curious to know whether Dershowitz is now invited to conservative dinner parties. Now, that would make for some lively discussions, if he decided to go. But if he’s going to conservative dinner parties, why has he lost weight? Is the food less plentiful? Less caloric? Or are the dinner parties fewer in number?]