The member of the president’s defense team maintains a narrow view on impeachment regardless of evidence and arguments.
Alan Dershowitz, the high-profile attorney and law professor who just joined President Donald Trump’s defense team, made the case against impeachment on Sunday by focusing only on constitutional criteria.
On ABC’s “This Week,” Dershowitz said the two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress stemming from the pressure campaign on Ukraine to investigate a Trump political rival — were “noncriminal actions.”
The program’s host, George Stephanopoulos, pressed him on the point: “Is it your position that President Trump should not be impeached even if all the evidence and arguments laid out by the House are accepted as fact?”
“That’s right,” Dershowitz replied. Invoking the founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, he maintained that impeaching based on the current articles could result in “nightmare” scenarios, giving Congress too much power over the president or turning impeachment into a question of “who has the most votes in the House.”
In an earlier interview with ABC, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), dismissed that argument as “absurdist.”
“You had to go so far out of the mainstream to find someone to make that argument,” Schiff said Sunday. “You had to leave the realm of constitutional law scholars and go to criminal defense lawyers.”
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In his recent book on impeachment, Dershowitz wrote that “an American should not collude with a foreign power in an effort to enhance his candidacy.” But on Sunday, Dershowitz would not comment on whether he agreed with the Trump legal team’s brief.
“I didn’t sign that brief. I didn’t even see the brief until after it was filed,” he said. “That’s not part of my mandate. My mandate is to determine what is a constitutionally authorized criteria for impeachment.”
“If the allegations are not impeachable, then this trial should result in an acquittal,” Dershowitz said, “regardless of whether the conduct is regarded as OK by you or by me or by voters.”
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Attorney Alan Dershowitz, a member of the president’s defense team, maintains a narrow view on impeachment regardless of evidence and argumentshttps://t.co/26sLl7jvac
— POLITICO (@politico) January 19, 2020
It really is a remarkable position: "If a foreign power invaded the U.S., and took a state out of the Union, Trump allowing it would not be impeachable offense." No wonder Trump chose him. https://t.co/bIt4IVreYP
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 19, 2020
“The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
—Federalist No. 65 (Alexander Hamilton)
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020“The limitation of the period of his service, was not a sufficient security. He might lose his capacity after his appointment. He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020“Mr. RANDOLPH. The propriety of impeachments was a favorite principle with him. Guilt wherever found ought to be punished.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020“Should no regular punishment be provided, it will be irregularly inflicted by tumults & insurrections.”
—Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Reported by James Madison, Friday, July 20, 1787
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020In Federalist No. 65, Hamilton does not warn—as Dershowitz and some Rs claim—that we should reject impeachment when parties clash over it. To the contrary, Hamilton cites the inevitability of partisanship as a reason to support the Constitution’s approach to trying impeachments.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 19, 2020
Our collective inability to kick obvious bad faith actors off the public stage will be the end of the republic.
— Ashton Kemerling (@ashton) January 20, 2020
"I didn't do the research back then." You know, when he had already been a tenured professor for, like, 30 years. A fine example to set. https://t.co/sYG4zW8wEo
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 21, 2020
Oh brother!
Trump will be acquitted, not because of any supposed constitutional mandates, but rather, because acquittal is in this reality tv show’s story line.
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