'I Have a More Sophisticated Basis for My Argument': Dershowitz, Backing Trump, Denies Flip-Flop on Impeachment
"It certainly doesn't have to be a crime," Alan Dershowitz said in a 1998 media interview. The Harvard Law professor emeritus now contends impeachment "must be 'criminal-like' conduct, or conduct 'akin to treason and bribery.'"
January 21, 2020 at 11:39 AM
5 minute read
Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor emeritus, civil libertarian and defender of Donald Trump, wants the public to know he hasn't changed his mind on what makes an impeachable offense. He's just got a deeper understanding of history, he maintains now, ever since he declared, during the Bill Clinton impeachment trial, that impeachable conduct does not require a crime.
"It certainly doesn't have to be a crime," Dershowitz said in a 1998 media interview. "If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of the president and abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don't need a technical crime."
Dershowitz has arguably changed his tune now, saying now that impeachment requires a "criminal-like" violation. "I am much more correct right now, having done more research," Dershowitz told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday. "I didn't do the research back then. I wasn't wrong. I am just far more correct now than I was then." Dershowitz, a member of the Trump impeachment defense team, said he has a "more sophisticated basis for my argument now."
Dershowitz asserted Monday night on Twitter: "There is no inconsistency between what I said during the Clinton impeachment and what I am saying now. I said then that there doesn't have to be a 'technical' crime. I have said now there must be 'criminal-like' conduct, or conduct 'akin to treason and bribery.'"
The dispute isn't entirely academic. Trump's lawyers asserted in their impeachment trial brief, filed on Monday, that "the Framers restricted impeachment to specific offenses against 'already known and established law.'" That argument, however, cuts against a broad consensus among legal scholars that impeachment doesn't require a specific criminal offense but, rather, and far more broadly, an abuse of public trust. Dershowitz is expected to grab a speaking role at Trump's trial later this week.
Trump's impeachment lawyers, led by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, used their opening trial brief largely to attack the impeachment process, calling it "rigged." The defense team claimed the president had done nothing wrong in his communication with the president of Ukraine, a central focus of the articles of impeachment. House Democrats contend Trump abused the power of his office in pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations of his election rivals, a move that would have benefited Trump personally.
Here's a snapshot of some of the things lawyers are saying about the Trump impeachment brief:
>> Frank Bowman, law professor at University of Missouri and an impeachment scholar: "This argument is constitutional nonsense. The almost universal consensus—in Great Britain, in the colonies, in the American states between 1776 and 1787, at the Constitutional Convention and since—has been that criminal conduct is not required for impeachment." [NYT]
>> George Conway, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and husband of Kellyanne Conway: "Even if a statutory crime were required, the House's charge that Trump tried to solicit a personal benefit (Ukraine's announcement of an investigation) in exchange for an official act (releasing the security aid) constitutes bribery, both as understood in the Framers' time and under the federal criminal code today." [The Washington Post]
>> Lawrence Tribe, impeachment scholar and professor at Harvard Law School: "The argument that only criminal offenses are impeachable has died a thousand deaths in the writings of all the experts on the subject, but it staggers on like a vengeful zombie. In fact, there is no evidence that the phrase 'high Crimes and Misdemeanors' was understood in the 1780s to mean indictable crimes." [The Washington Post]
>> Orin Kerr, law professor at University of California-Berkeley: "Should be a simple rule: Profs repping clients are lawyers, not profs. Leave all academic labels and affiliations behind." [Twitter]
>> Rep. Jerry Nadler, a House impeachment manager: "Now, when I saw Professor Dershowitz's comment that you have to have a violation of the criminal code to be in abuse of power, to be constitutionally suspect, to be constitutionally impeachable. I thought he was merely ignorant, now that I see his 1999 quote, I know he's lying." [MSNBC]
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllGC of Florida State Agency Steps Down After Threatening TV Stations That Aired Abortion-Rights Ad
First Amendment, Appointments Clause at Issue in September Supreme Court Petitions
'Onerous Speech Code'?: Wiley Rein Says Md. Green Power Law Violates 1st Amendment Rights
3 minute readJudge Strikes Down Missouri Law Requiring Sex Offenders To Display 'No Candy' Sign
3 minute readTrending Stories
- 1The Law Firm Disrupted: Playing the Talent Game to Win
- 2A&O Shearman Adopts 3-Level Lockstep Pay Model Amid Shift to All-Equity Partnership
- 3Preparing Your Law Firm for 2025: Smart Ways to Embrace AI & Other Technologies
- 4BD Settles Thousands of Bard Hernia Mesh Lawsuits
- 5A RICO Surge Is Underway: Here's How the Allstate Push Might Play Out
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250