Susan B. Glasser writes in the New Yorker about Alan Dershowitz’s bizarre defense of Trump in the impeachment “process” (not a trial, which has witnesses and evidence). Dershowitz is criminal defense attorney, not a Constitutional lawyer. He also had the dishonor of being in pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s black book of clients, which he denies.
His defense is that Trump is above the law. He is like an emperor or a king or a dictator. He can do, as Trump himself asserted, whatever he wants.
An hour into the Senate trial of Donald John Trump on Wednesday, the emeritus Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz came to the floor to answer a question from a former Harvard law student, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. In theory, it was a question that went to the heart of the impeachment case against Trump, about the President’s imposition of a quid pro quo on military aid to Ukraine and whether his motivations mattered. Dershowitz had something larger and more profound to say, however: Donald Trump has the power to do just about anything he wants to do, and there’s nothing that the U.S. Senate can or should do about it.
For more than a week, House managers prosecuting the impeachment case against Trump have argued that the Senate’s failure to convict him would make Trump an unaccountable leader; in effect, a dictator or a king. When Dershowitz spoke, it was as if he completely agreed with them. Two days earlier, Dershowitz had told senators that Presidential “abuse of power” should not be considered an impeachable offense under the Constitution. On Wednesday, he took that further—much further. “If a President does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” he argued. Dershowitz was offering Trump—and all future Presidents—a free pass. His argument seemed unbelievable: as long as the President thinks his reëlection will benefit the country, he can do anything in pursuit of it without fear of impeachment. Really?
Trump has already said that he considers himself empowered by Article II of the Constitution “to do whatever I want.” Video of this extraordinary moment has been played, repeatedly, by House managers in the trial. They clearly saw it as a damning statement made by a power-grabbing President—and then the President’s counsel, in effect, endorsed Trump’s power grab on the floor of the Senate. So long as Trump believes himself to be acting in the national interest, Dershowitz said, he can do whatever he wants. If the past three years have taught us anything, it is that Trump is a President who is comfortable conflating his own interest with the national interest. L’état, c’est Trump.
As matters now stand, it appears that the Republican majority in the Senate agrees that Trump can do whatever he wants. In effect, they are abandoning their responsibility as Senators to hold the president accountable.
Someday Trump will get his comeuppance. If not now, in good time. We cannot let one coarse ignorant bully destroy our democracy.
Time for a revolution.
It really looks that way.
Sad to add, Diane, that it is not only one bully. It is over 40% of registered voters, Repubs, who voted for him and still support him. And it is 51 Repub Senators who allowed this farce of a NON TRIAL to come to this outcome so that we are no longer, in their view, a tripartite govt and the Constitution can be throw in the garbage. How about you calling your old boss and friend, Lamar Alexander, and pleading with him to do the right thing, and NOT let our democratic republic become the Trump and Repub dictatorship?
Good Idea.
Of course if the Democrats had not taken control of the House, there would be no impeachment investigation whatsoever. Dershowitz is a shameless amoral demagogue, much like his lord and master, Trump.
Dershowitz knows that Jabba the Trump has the goods on him. That’s what’s really going on, ofc.
Yes, & not surprised if it has to do w/Jeffrey Epstein.
On another track, this is why nothing is happening to Ghislane Maxwell: TMI on anyone who is anyone.
Dershowitz is a disgrace. Saw him & his once student Jeffrey Toobin on AC 360. Toobin gave him what for & Dershowitz blathered. Not quite like Giuliani, but, as to what he’s become, worse.
Husband & I watching PBS On Demand, American Experience: McCarthy–so much the same as now: so many Reps. in Congress went along w/him because they were afraid of him. It took the top to have him taken down but, then, there were some principled Republicans.
Sadly, that is no longer the case. NO “sense of decency.”
Or knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.
I’m not surprised that a Trump attorney known to always sell himself to the highest bidder would make the Nixonian claim that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”. Trump himself already told voters before the 2016 election that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would say it was fine. Clearly that didn’t bother his voters nor did it bother the people who didn’t think it mattered whether he won.
What is shocking is that every one of the Republican Senators is now embracing that view. Actually, it’s not shocking. We knew this was the danger in electing Trump.
No matter which candidate wins the primary, I doubt there will be a fair election. It doesn’t matter whether it is Bernie, Biden, Warren or anyone. Trump and William Barr and their cronies believe anything is fine if it helps him win. We knew this was the danger if Trump won in 2016. I’d love to be proven wrong.
Dershowitz and Jabba the Trump. Note to dictionary makers: put the pictures of these two next to the word “sleaze” in upcoming editions.
Utter corruption at the highest levels, and a 180-degree turn from democracy to an embrace of completely unaccountable, absolute autocracy. Sickening.
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2020/01/25/the-trump-trial/
As the world watches, each senator voting for acquittal will be part of the cover up. I am ashamed of those politicians who licks the boots rather than honor their oath to the constitution and country. It is disheartening.
I made phone calls, left messages, and sent emails. We will see if it made a difference.
Yes. This shames us all. Putin and his buddies must be laughing their fool heads off. There is no depth to which the Repugnicans in the Senate are not willing to go, it seems, if they can be free to do the bidding of their fat cat donors, which this fool, Trump, enables them to do. None of it matters. The fact that the President is a moron, a con man, a serial predator, a traitor. None of it matters to this Limbo Party. How low, how low, how low can we go?
Well said, Bob. Agree totally.
Trump and those Repugnicans who enable him are the lowest.
I wonder what kind of “dirt” they all have on one another? Bet we cannot even imagine.
O to see these two sleazeballs in court getting the Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby treatment!!! I hope I live to see that day!!!
And after that, I would love to see Jabba the Trump and his Propaganda Minister Stephen “Goebbels” Miller in the dock at the International Court of Criminal Justice charged with crimes against humanity.
Trump is so brazen that I’m sure he got a big kick out of choosing his old Epstein party buddy Dirtowitz to represent him at this “trial” in the Senate. By doing that, Trump is rubbing the country’s nose in his vile past. He is the gleeful comic book villain dancing on the grave of democracy and urinating on the statue of Lady Justice. It must make this pathological narcissist, with all his neediness, feel so powerful. “I can do anything, anything, and get away with it. Hee hee hee hee hee hee.”
And the Repugnican Senators, they know all of this. They know, and they simply don’t care.
Is this how the empire ends? Not with a bang but an orange whiz?
#&(#(#@*(!!!!!!!
Let’s hope that dump gets blows over and crashes like his wall. That would be most fitting.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/trumps-wall-fell-down/
Trump is a vandal. And the last next thing he plans to vandalize is democracy itself. When George Washington entered Congress and they all stood, Washington told them to sit the **** down, that in this new country, there was no King. Well here we are. King Trump. Trump who IS the law. And that’s, of course, why Putin gave us Trump, to vandalize all our institutions, to appoint to head every department and agency someone intent on trashing it, to vandalize democracy itself.
And then there’s little Alan Dirtowitz, the scared rabbit, the one who has been caught, the one who is in the Room 101 of his worst fear–exposure of what he really is–and must serve the Master even if it means that he, the Constitutional lawyer, must attempt to create a United States with an unaccountable King.
Sadly, it will be years before the truth and guilt sinks into to these weak GOP senators. By 2030 (this may not be exact – heard it on NPR a couple of days ago) – the national debt will = 98% of the national economy. On the GOP watch. College debt will skyrocket. Middle class jobs, health care for those in poverty and fixed incomes, and clean air will disappear. And, guns. We will face a class war and the widest gap of haves and have nots (rich white males vs. everybody else) ever.
One – “However” – the Democrats aren’t smart enough (seriously – why are we here?) but a lot of regular old conservative Americans are not happy about the “no witnesses.” That could backfire. “Above the law” should not fly with educated conservatives – even the ones who sold their souls for their causes.
Imagine if OJ (Yes – same lawyer) said, “nah, we’re not going have witnesses or evidence (black glove) in this trial. Or Bernie Madoff – or Jeffrey Epstein – or Harvey Weinstein- – what if the defense could claim – “sorry – no witnesses or evidence – just vote” ——– Well, now there is PRECEDENT – The T&%$* Precedent .
If all politics are local – wait until this ploy is played out in county courts, state courts – calling for mistrials because it’s their Constitutional Right not to have a trial with witnesses.
This is so sick.
I teach U.S. history, and we are currently discussing checks and balances. I feel like a fraud teaching it, because I know that’s not really how it works anymore. I cry for these kids, who will grow up not knowing what our democracy used to look like, and with a dictatorship instead.
Thank goodness you are teaching U.S. History, Threatened Out West.
You’re kind, Yvonne. It’s been a hard year to teach this particular class, I can tell you that. Watching m6 beloved Constitution destroyed has truly broken me.
In case more of you are reading this post rather than the latter, Milbank post, PLEASE fax 5 Republican Senators (you can do 5 for free before midnight, then, after, 5 more for free),
asking/telling them to vote for witness testimony (including the Bidens, if it will get us Bolton, Mulvaney, & Parnes, although you don’t have to include this compromise if you choose not to). Recommended: Utah: Romney & Lee; AK: Murkowski & Sullivan; ME: Collins; IA: Ernst; CO: Gardner. Also recommended to me from someone I’d forwarded this to (& she’d Faxed Murkowski, & it went through/worked: Lamar Alexander. Go to:
https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.ph
Been watching the PBS American Experience:McCarthy (watch it fast–goes off OnDemand 2/2/20, although I guess it would then be available on pbs.org)–you might put the following famous Welch line to Mc in the Army vs. McCarthy hearings:
“At last, have you no decency?”
Oh, & Dershowitz insisted on that AC 360 to Jeff Tioobin & Cooper that he IS a Constitutional lawyer, (a so-called :”expert” on the Constitution) & that he is involved in that capacity, as a “protector” of the Constitution, as only he knows how to correctly interpret the Constitution.
Right…like Bill Barr is the A.G. of the American people.
“impeachment “process” (not a trial, which has witnesses and evidence).”
I think the correct word to use is “circus”; impeachment circus. Except this circus has no entertainment value.
What we see, imo, is that this process of impeachment provided by our legal system is toothless.