Vineyard Haven, MA - Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has doubled down on his defense of President Donald Trump to the Martha’s Vineyard crowd that he says has shunned him.

The Boston Globe reports Dershowitz hosted a talk at a local theater Wednesday night where he explains his past comments and says his job is to “provoke conversation.”

Dershowitz has been criticized for arguing that a special counsel should not have been appointed to investigate Trump’s dealings with Russia.

He laments in an op-ed for The Hill last month that his stance has prompted liberal elites on the Vineyard, where he frequently vacations, to shun him.

Wednesday’s event comes days after Trump suggested he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin when he denied Russian agents interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections.