Legal Memorandum/Brief submitted to
Israeli Attorney General
Legal Memorandum/Brief and Comparative Legal Analysis drafted by Nathan Lewin, Esq. with Alan Dershowitz, Esq., Richard D. Heideman, Esq., Professor Avi Bell and Joseph Tipograph, Esq. and submitted to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, State of Israel with regard to issues relating to the claims of bribery and the media.
Associate Counsel Team
Nathan Lewin, Esq.
Alan Dershowitz, Esq.
Richard D. Heideman, Esq.
Professor Avi Bell
Joseph Tipograph, Esq.
ENDORSING STATEMENT
I/We have read the Legal Memorandum/Brief and Comparative Legal Analysis filed by Lewin, Dershowitz, Heideman, Bell and Tipograph, and are of the opinion that viewing positive media coverage as a sufficient “thing of value” to serve as the basis of a criminal charge of bribery threatens to chill protected speech, and constitutes a danger to freedom of speech, freedom of the press and democracy more generally. We are unaware of any precedent in the democratic world in which owners or members of the press have been convicted of bribery for the act of giving positive coverage in expectation of an official act being carried out in exchange.
- Larry Alexander, Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego
- Jeremy Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University
- Pascal Markowitz, Attorney at the Paris Bar
- Joel T. Griffith, Esq. DC Chair, Young Jewish Conservatives
- Marc Greendorfer, President, Zachor Legal Institute
- Arthur F. Fergenson, Senior Counsel, Ansa Assuncao LLP
- F.R. Jenkins, Esq., Meridian 361 International Law Group
- Eugene Kontorovich, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School
- David Schoen, Attorney-at-Law
- Harvey A. Silverglate, lawyer and writer, of counsel to Boston’s Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP.
Relevant Articles
(March 18, 2020 by Edwin Black / JewishPress) In a living, breathing democracy, the media constitute that necessary permeable interface between the people and those who govern. The media is called upon to exercise a sevenfold mandate: to question, to accuse, to defend, to remember, to predict, to inform and to entertain.
Those who know the media know it is controlled by both scoundrels and saints, and every permutation in between. Like society itself, the media is imperfect and fallible.
