A petition sgined by 18 Democrat attroneys general from around the nation calling for new Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe is "hypocritical" and should be aimed at Deputy General Rod Rosenstein instead, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Friday.
"Rosenstein is much, much, much more subject to recusal than Whitaker," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
"Rosenstein is a witness and the one who wrote the letter and may have been his idea initially to fire (former FBI Director James) Comey and that's the investigation," said Dershowitz. "You have a man overseeing the investigation who is a witness and possible subject, and yet none of the state attorney generals are calling for his recusal."
The petition, submitted Thursday, calls for Whitaker to recuse himself, saying that he has shown "hostility" to the Mueller investigation through comments he's made to the media.
It is signed by the attorneys general, all Democrats, of Massachusetts, New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
The petition is "hypocritical," said Dershowitz, because those filing it want Rosenstein, not Whitaker, to oversee the Russia investigation.
"You have to look at both of these people, Whitaker and Rosenstein, and ask yourself whether Rosenstein should be involved in this investigation at all," Dershowitz said. "The matter of Whitaker is controversial and subject to dispute, but I think Rosenstein's recusal is not a matter of dispute….He should have been out of this case from day one."
Rosenstein, he continued, "has expressed real hostility to President Trump, and he may be subject to removal to office under the 25th Amendment."
Further, if the arguments against Whitaker can't be made equally strongly against Rosenstein, then that shows a "a real partisanship and political thumb on the scale," Dershowitz said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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