Famous Legal Expert Slams Media 'Mob,' Says There's 'No Doubt' Rittenhouse Acted in Self-Defense
Famed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz indicted CNN this week for turning the ongoing trial of Kyle Rittenhouse into liberal clickbait.
“CNN and some of the other TV stations have become vigilantes,” he told Breitbart.
“They’re the vigilantes, not Rittenhouse. They’re the ones who want to put not the thumb, but the elbow on the scale of justice. They want to influence the outcome of this case,” he said.
The 18-year-old is charged with two counts of first-degree homicide, the most serious charges against him, for shooting three people during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Aug. 25, 2020.
He also faces two counts of first-degree endangering safety through the use of a dangerous weapon and one count of attempted first-degree homicide.
Rittenhouse has said that he was acting in self-defense.
Dershowitz noted that the case has been fodder for whipping up emotions.
When we marched in Ferguson, white supremacists would hide behind a hill near where Michael Brown Jr. was murdered and shoot at us.
They never faced consequences.
If Kyle Rittenhouse gets acquitted, it tells them that even 7 years later they still can get away with it.
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) November 15, 2021
“There are others who are threatening violence if there is anything but convictions in this case, as they threatened violence in previous cases and will in subsequent cases unless something is done about it,” he said on SiriusXM’s “Breitbart News Sunday,” without naming names.
However, Dershowitz saved his fiercest criticism for the establishment media.
“It’s The New Yorker and CNN that are the vigilantes,” he said. “They’re the ones who are trying to influence justice without regard to what the evidence or the law is.”
CNN is the de facto PR operation of what Dershowitz termed “the mob.”
“The fear is that we’ve turned our criminal system over to the mob, CNN being part of the mob,” he said.
The facts of the case as determined by an unbiased review of the evidence should rule, the famed attorney said.
“He should be acquitted. The jury should not even be able to consider the attempted murder of the guy who admitted on the witness stand he pointed a gun at him before [he] was shot in the shoulder,” Dershowitz said, referring to Gaige Grosskreutz. “That is a clear case of self-defense — no doubt about it — and it should never go to the jury.”
Rittenhouse, he said, “shouldn’t be convicted based on the evidence that I’ve seen.”
When the teenager shot Grosskreutz, Dershowitz said, he was being threatened.
“Oliver Wendell Holmes once said reason can’t be expected in the presence of an uplifted knife, and what about in the presence of guns and skateboards and other threats?” the attorney said.
He then referred to the case of George Zimmerman, who was charged with a crime for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012.
“That was the same thing with the Zimmerman case, where Zimmerman had his head bashed against the concrete before he grabbed the gun and shot and killed [Martin]. In that case, I also said there should be an acquittal, and there was,” Dershowitz said.
He also gave his opinion on why Kenosha Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder has not declared a mistrial even with all of Schroeder’s criticism of the prosecution.
“Judges don’t want to be responsible for letting defendants go free. They would much prefer to let the jury do it, which is why the judge didn’t declare a mistrial,” Dershowitz said.
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