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Dershowitz is his new best friend-and certainly he’s a better lawyer than anyone Trump has ever had on his team. Dershowitz, however, insists he won’t represent Herr Trump. They did have dinner last night and he did give the so-called President some legal advice. 

“Alan Dershowitz, fresh from a White House visit, tells Slate the president’s civil liberties have been violated during the Mueller investigation.”

Yes, Trump  who fired Comey and harassed potential FBI witnesses against him in the Mueller probe and regularly inveighs against the press has had his civil liberties violated.

“On Tuesday night, with reports circulating that he was furious about both the raid on the offices of his lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the gathering force of the Mueller investigation, President Trump dined with famed law professor and pundit Alan Dershowitz. Though he still self-identifies as a Democrat, Dershowitz has emerged as one of the president’s highest profile defenders; he appears frequently on cable news programs the president watches, and just criticized the seizure of documents from Cohen’s office. (He recently referred to Mueller as a “zealot.”) Dershowitz also speaks frequently on Mideast politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ostensible reasons for his visit to the White House today.”

To be sure, this may be Dershowitz’ political calculus: always stay on the President’s side-even an illegitimate one like Trump-so he can continue to have an open ear for his Mideast agenda; Dershowitz is a major Israel hawk.

Dershowitz, for his part, insists he DID NOT give Trump legal advice-he just talked to him about his legal issues in a way that could help him. You see the distinction?

While Dershowitz implausibly argues that Herr Trump is the one whose civil liberties have been violated, he does say he’s advised him against firing Mueller.

“Because I think that it would be perceived as political and I think a lot of Republicans would be concerned about that. I think it would be a political mistake to do that. I think his much better course is to proceed with the investigation, and tell the truth. He shouldn’t testify unless he has to. Nobody ever should. Nobody who is the subject of an investigation should ever testify. It never does you any good. They are not asking you to testify to help yourself; they are asking you to testify to help the prosecution. But he may have no choice because they can subpoena him.”

Aha-tell the truth. But there’s the rub: that’s only a good idea for him if the truth is on his side. Why does Dershowitz presume that it is?

Similarly with the raid-how does Dershowitz know it wasn’t justified on the basis of overwhelming evidence?

UPDATE: It’s been over a year since I wrote the above and Dershowitz has only gotten worse. Dersh is now rather absurdly claiming that if the Democrats impeach Trump this means they’re they ones who are above the law. 

Wish we were kidding.

The mantra invoked by those Democrats who are seeking to impeach President Trump is that “no one is above the law.” That, of course, is true, but it is as applicable to Congress as it is to the president. Those members of Congress who are seeking to impeach the president, even though he has not committed any of the specified impeachable offenses set out in the Constitution, are themselves seeking to go above the law.

All branches of government are bound by the law. Members of Congress, presidents, justices and judges must all operate within the law. All take an oath to support the Constitution, not to rewrite it for partisan advantage.

“It is the law that exempts presidents from being prosecuted or impeached for carrying out their constitutional authority under Article 2. The same Constitution precludes members of Congress from being prosecuted for most actions taken while on the floor of the House and Senate or on the way to performing their functions.”

It’s amazing the legal contortions someone with the legal reputation of Dershowitz is getting into to defend the indefensible-there is no such limiting list in the Constitution of impeachable offenses-you can impeach only if offense 1, 2, or 3 occurred. He’s trying to pigeonhole Congress on what it can impeach a ‘President’ on but the truth is what’s impeachable is largely what Congress says is impeachable.

FN: On the other hand from the guy who got OJ acquitted and ‘advises’ Jeffrey Epstein maybe this is just par for the course.

You know he acquitted OJ and advises Epstein and Trump. Of course, Epstein, Trump and Dershowitz himself form a kind of (un)Holy Trinity. 

End of FN.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors is by its nature subjective. Dershowitz is trying to so limit the parameters of impeachable conduct that no President in history could ever be impeachable.

His claim in the last paragraph couldn’t be more false-there is clear precedent that obstruction of justice is impeachable-both Nixon and Clinton were impeached-Nixon would have been-for obstruction. Is Dershowitz’s position that Nixon got a raw deal-as one of the articles of impeachment was firing Archibald Cox?

What Dershowitz always ‘forgets’ is that intent matters-an action that is normally legal can be illegal-and certainly unethical-if performed for a corrupt motive-a la for a President-or ‘President’ like Herr Trump-to protect himself from an investigation into himself.

Mueller clearly thought Trump could be guilty of obstruction but it seems because of the DOJ-legally dubious-precedent that the President can’t be indicted intended for Congress to consider what remedies or punishment to impose.

Dershowitz’s I know you are but what am I defense of Trump no doubt puts him on the illegitimate ‘President’s good side which is clearly the intention.

Dershowitz may claim to nominally be a Democrat but is clearly doing everything he can to to ingratiate himself to the alleged

President’-it turns out Dersh was also involved in the pardon of Conrad Black. 

There’s this canard out that, if you can believe her, Speaker Pelosi herself subscribes to that Trump wants to be impeached. From that follows what? Is her genius evil plan to spite him by not impeaching him? 

Some think Pelosi is playing 11 dimensional chess. If she believes this she’s playing checkers at best and not a particularly good game of it. Indeed, if anything maybe the Trump Deplorables are the ones playing 11 dimensional chess-by claiming Trump wants to be impeached they have managed to con the Dem leadership.

To be sure even the Trump co-conspirators don’t believe such a ludicrous claim.

Former campaign staffer cum Roger Stone protege Sam Nunberg knows Trump pretty well and thinks impeachment would ‘destroy’ Herr Trump. But evidently Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Hakeem Jeffries, Jim Clyburn-they’re taking the bait?

Speaking of Congressman Jeffries he had another recent low moment.

I mean at this late date he’s still opposed to not only impeachment but ‘over investigating?’ With as much abuse of power and misconduct-to say nothing of treason-as Trump has engaged in it’s not possible to over-investigate.

To be clear I don’t seriously believe that Trump plays chess 11 dimensional or otherwise. Indeed Masha Gessen pointed out a long time ago that Trump simply throws the pieces around the board. But this is how he snows the MSM so often too-as Gessen said, the Beltway journalists refused to simply report this-he’s throwing the pieces around the board. Instead they furrow their eyebrows a la Halle Jackson what strategy do you believe President Trump is employing here? 

Or Stephanie Ruhle: Ok he’s actually throwing his pieces around the board but will it work? 

The MSM can’t bring itself to be so gauche as to just admit-Trump throws his pieces around the board there is no strategy. But often it seems this works just as well on both the MSM and the Dem leadership as both are the only folks in the country who really believe Trump wants to be impeached. 

And how do they know this? Well many of Trump’s hacks have claimed it. Case closed? I mean these co-conspirators would never lie!

But Dersh clearly doesn’t want the Fuhrer ‘President’ to be impeached. And you can put it in the bank-neither does the ‘President’ himself.

He wants to be impeached as much as he wanted to be interviewed by Mueller. Remember that? ‘President Trump said he’d welcome the chance to tell Mueller the truth’ the MSM dutifully quoted him. Yet he never did an interview. How does the MSM explain that-as they insist on ruling out the fact that he’s a pathological liar as an answer?

Contrary to Trump’s lawyer adviser Alan Dershowitz Congressman Jamie Raskin-who came out for an impeachment inquiry last week-points out that impeachment is not focused solely on illegality.

FN: Dershowitz’s role with the Russia House goes deep-while he advised them on the Middle East he had contact with a lobbyist for Qatar. 

“It’s the people’s and the Congress’s final instrument of self-defense against a president who is trampling the rule of law and assuming the powers of a king. It has both legal and political dimensions. The legal aspect requires us to ask whether there have been high crimes and misdemeanors such as treason or bribery, which I take to mean grave offenses from on high of a public character against the democracy itself. The political part requires us to ask whether the public interest demands impeachment and conviction as a remedy to stop a pattern of misconduct that is contemptuous of the rule of law and our Constitution. If it were a purely legal judgment, it would have been assigned to the courts in Article III, but the founders rejected that idea and located it in Article I, with Congress.”

Unfortunately the Dem leadership has continually drawn specious Trump-Clinton analogies-when Trump isn’t Clinton he’s Nixon-without the intelligence and qualifications.

In that vein it’s nice to see Raskin-an important member of the Judiciary-analogizing Trump not to Clinton but Andrew Johnson-an analogy that really fits.

There can be real risks attendant to impeachment, as when it acts like a partisan hit over low crimes and misdemeanors, which is what happened with Bill Clinton.”

But he goes on to say that’s the wrong comparison and that while there are risks for impeachment when the conduct doesn’t really reach an adequate level there are also risks for not impeaching-the key is wether a President’s conduct-or ‘President’ like Trump-threatens the Rule of Law itself.

By the way a good point raised recently is that the Democrats also shouldn’t be politicizing this as an excuse not to impeach-because they worry about polls of white guys in the Midwest or they got snowed into thinking Trump wants to be impeached so let’s really cook his goose but not impeaching him!

But there are real risks attendant to notimpeaching when a president is systematically thwarting the rule of law and destroying constitutional norms. If you read David Stewart’s book about Andrew Johnson, I think you will come away with the sense that Johnson was an egregious threat to the Constitution, to the rule of law, and to Reconstruction, and he absolutely should have been impeached, convicted, and removed. Johnson’s escape from this fate by a single vote in the Senate was a tragedy for America and especially African Americans.”

Although we must be careful not to fall into another fallacy-that impeachment is only ‘worth doing’ if you ultimately remove Trump. False:

“After the house impeaches a president, the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove him from office. Opponents of impeachment point out that, despite the greater severity of the prospective charges against Trump, there is little reason to believe the Senate is more likely to remove him than it was to remove Clinton. Indeed, the Senate’s Republican majority has shown little will to break with the president—though that may change. The process of impeachment itself is likely to shift public opinion, both by highlighting what’s already known and by bringing new evidence to light. If Trump’s support among Republican voters erodes, his support in the Senate may do the same. One lesson of Richard Nixon’s impeachment is that when legislators conclude a presidency is doomed, they can switch allegiances in the blink of an eye.”

“But this sort of vote-counting, in any case, misunderstands the point of impeachment. The question of whether impeachment is justified should not be confused with the question of whether it is likely to succeed in removing a president from office. The country will benefit greatly regardless of how the Senate ultimately votes. Even if the impeachment of Donald Trump fails to produce a conviction in the Senate, it can safeguard the constitutional order from a president who seeks to undermine it. The protections of the process alone are formidable.”

Interestingly Raskin says he already started thinking about impeachment after Trump’s ‘election’-glad to hear it. I mean I and many of my fellow Dems and resisters have been but often you wonder about the Dem electeds the leadership has tried so hard to draw a picture like impeachment is something no Democrat in Congress ever thinks about.

In any case if the Rule of Law is to be protected Trump has to be impeached. Dershowitz seems intent on placing the chance to be an influencer in the Russia House above our system of democracy itself employing every legal sophistical trick he can in the service of protecting this illegitimate ‘President’ this illegitimate ‘man.’ You wonder what he has to say about Trump now giving Coverup AG Barr the power to leak any classified info he wants if the thinks it will benefit Trump politically? Seeing as Dersh claims to be such a champion of civil liberties.

As we saw above Dershowitz has attacked Mueller repeatedly in visceral terms-a zealot, etc. No doubt that is a useful argument to Trump-why not destroy intel officials involved in the Trump-Russia investigation as it’s was lead by a ‘zealot?’

 

 

 

 

 

 

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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

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