JUST when you thought the WikiLeaks saga couldn't get MORE surreal

[Blue_Tires]

Dershowitz Joins Legal Team for Wikileaks

Harvard Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz will join Wikileaks founder Julian P. Assange’s legal defense team, according to a Wikileaks statement released yesterday.

Dershowitz told The Crimson that he will serve in an advisory position and said he does not expect a more active role unless the U.S. were to prosecute Assange.

Assange’s head lawyer Geoffrey R. Robertson, who has worked with Dershowitz in the past, contacted the professor to work on the case.

Dershowitz has a history of participating in high-profile cases, including taking part on the “dream team” legal counsel that defended O.J. Simpson.

Assange’s Wikileaks organization has been under scrutiny around the world for releasing leaked documents from the U.S. State Department.

Though Assange is not facing charges in the U.S., he currently faces extradition charges in Britain related to a sexual assault investigation in Sweden.

In addition, Wikileaks will appear in American courts for the first time today in Alexandria, Va. regarding the Justice Department’s subpoena of all records of communication between Wikileaks and its supporters via the social networking site Twitter, which is anticipated to resist the order.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/2/15/dershowitz-case-wikileaks-new/

[msanthrope]

1. This tells me that Assange knows he's going back to Sweden on sex charges....

You don't hire Dershowitz for extradition issues...

You hire Dershowitz when you've done something heinous against a woman, and you need to cover your ass...

Ask OJ and Claus von Bulow.

Then again, Dershowitz will also be helpful if the grand jury in VA (rumored) starts issuing little pieces of paper...

[Luminous Animal]

3. That must be why he was on the Gore team when he represented voters in Democratic voters

in Florida.

[msanthrope]

7. He wasn't on the 'Gore team.' He pro bono rep'd some

voters in order to get on the talk shows because David Boies wouldn't give him the time of day.

He would have b een on the Bush side if Jim Baker had but smiled at him (check out his Bush/torture support.)

Perfect. Maybe they can get F. Lee Bailey next.

[hlthe2b]

6. OMG, msanthrope... I have never heard anything more ridiculous.

"You hire Dershowitz when you've done something heinous against a woman, and you need to cover your ass..." What a vile assumption to make--based on hiring an attorney? Any attorney. Including Dershowitz, who despite his determined attempts to become nothing more than a Bush* apologist over torture and a Faux news mouthpiece in recent years, apparently does still retain his skills in some areas of the constitution.

[msanthrope]

8. Ah--so one isn't allowed to comment on Assange's PR moves?

I call it a bad PR move to hire a lawyer known primarily for his wife-killer defences.

[hlthe2b]

9. Actually, I'd say he is more known for his defense of torture...

which has earned him my unending share of contempt. But, he is known throughout legal circles for his supposed expertise on the US constitution. Given the expressed intent to try ASSANGE in this country on what most legal experts question as based on any evidence nor statutory authority and with no limits to the vigilante rhetoric, I should say including some one like Dershowitz to be an expected move--besides it indicates that his lead attorney has worked with him in the past. Why that would lead to supposition as to Assange's guilt or innocence on sex charges is beyond me. Are we now judged not only by the company we keep, but the attorneys that are brought in to defend us? :shrug:

[pnwmom]

2. Perfect. Another grandstander. n/t

[leveymg]

4. You're a very strange man, Professor . . . You have NO idea.

[kestrel91316]

5. Isn't Dershowitz basically Gloria Allred in pants? A publicity hound??