Dershowitz to Read White House Rebuttal

The fact that he's not an official member of President Clinton's legal team has not kept Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz from entering the fray surrounding the White House scandal.

Dershowitz has been a key figure in the Monica media maelstrom since its earliest days, appearing as a legal analyst on numerous network talk shows-including MSNBC's live town hall broadcast from the Kennedy School Wednesday night.

Now the man who successfully defended O.J. Simpson has joined the publishing rush attending the release of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's report to Congress last week.

Dershowitz has agreed to read the White House rebuttal to Starr's 453-page tract on an audio tape that will soon be available in local book stores.

Dove Audio has announced plans to release the first audio version of the now-famous documents, which were published in paperback form nearly overnight.

Dershowitz's presentation will follow a reading of Starr's report by actors David Ackroyd and Tracy B. Swope. In a media release, Dove Audio promises that the Ackroyd-Swope rendition will not dramatize the lengthy and often salacious material submitted by Starr.

Retailers expect that at $20, the seven-hour tape will fly off the shelves when it appears in stores next month.

While Dershowitz declined to comment for this story, Steven Brill, founder of Brill's Content magazine, had this to say:

"I think the White House would be better off if Dershowitz had written the rebuttal instead of reading it."