Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz has quit President Trump’s defense team in a huff ... I think because he felt that they didn’t come to his rescue when he got attacked for his extra-refined legal argument against impeachment. Basically, Dershowitz felt, if the president was doing something in the public interest ... even though in the back of his mind he might feel that this would help him get re-elected, that this was not impeachable. In other words, even if the president had mixed motives, this was OK.
Of course, the Democrat House managers jumped on this subtle distinction by saying, if the president felt that his re-election was in the public interest, that this was OK too ... crowing that Dershowitz felt that the president could do anything to get re-elected. (This, unfortunately for Dershowitz, did fit the perception of many that this fits Trump’s personality.) Then the spittle-flecked media attacked him like the pack of wild viewer-rating-dogs that they are.
Dershowitz’s law school peer, Elizabeth Warren, even said she couldn’t follow his logic. (Of course she could, but this was easy punishment for jumping ship in the name of scholarship.) And, his new friends, Trump’s defense team, chose not to walk this no-win plank with him ... so, now he left his new buddies in a huff.
He, of course, was logically right in his legal arguments. But, for once in his illustrious career, Dershowitz has found that being right does not necessarily prevail.
I here imagine myself the lead Trump defense lawyer, Jay Sekulow, and would lay out his defense in the Senate impeachment trial as follows:
First, I would set up what Biden had been up to after Obama put him in charge of the Ukraine portfolio. And then how his son, Hunter, was appointed to the Burisma board of directors at $83,000 per month. And then how the Ukraine attorney general was starting to look into this Burisma corruption.
Next I would play the above Joe Biden video where he brags about how he withheld $1 billion of US loan guarantees to the Ukraine unless and until this attorney general was fired ... which he, “son of a bitch,” promptly was.
Next, I would offer, on video, a professional actors’ re-enactment of the two phone calls between Trump and the Ukraine’s new president, Zelensky
Then, as a contrast, I would play Schiff’s reading of this famous July 25th call which was a blatant misrepresentation.
Then I would offer the videos from Schiff’s Intelligence Committee hearings ... in particular the embarrassing queries to the no-fact witnesses who were asked if they knew of any Trump crimes or impeachable offenses ... and no one replied in the affirmative. To be followed by the only fact-witness, Ambassador Sondland, relating Trump’s response when he was asked what he wanted, “I want nothing, no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do what he promised to do to get elected.” And that the US aid was shortly forthcoming.
Then, I would show what the Constitution writers wanted impeachment to be ... using Dershowitz’s explanation why maladministration was not impeachable. Followed by excerpts of the Ken Starr interview on impeachment with Mark Levin. And then, Professor Jonathan Turley s House Judiciary Committee’s testimony pointing out that the Democrats’ impeachment process was the real abuse of power.
Finally, I would present 10 to 20 videos of the House managers calling for Trump’s impeachment ... all before his famous July 25th phone call with Zelensky.
All told, this defense could be wrapped up in just one 8-hour day.
One obvious truth that has surfaced from the Mueller investigation (which has also been recognized by that liberal icon, Alan Dershowitz) is that the Special Counsel, as currently constructed, is a bad idea because of its unchecked power and possible political agenda. Clearly Mueller's only intent has been to bring down the President while totally ignoring overwhelming evidence of likely criminal conduct by many senior DOJ, CIA and FBI officials. -- Anon.
Dean Vernon Wormer once imposed Double Secret Probation on the Animal House in that classic movie by the same name. Now the Justice Department's Mueller team is claiming the same sort of gobbledygook applies to the "scope memo" that defines the original limits of the Trump-Russia collusion special investigation. Fortunately Judge T.S. Ellis wants to see for himself if Mueller has exceeded his authority in his prosecution of Manafort for bank fraud and money laundering.
The DOJ is claiming to Judge Ellis and to Congress that this scope memo is secret because it contains national security issues ... maybe "double national security issues," but I doubt if the American people are going to tolerate such an unfettered mandate in what every day becomes clearer what it really is -- an effort to "take down a duly-elected president" to paraphrase Judge Ellis.
As Allan Dershowitz and many others repeatedly complain ... this is criminalizes politics and thus undermines the very foundations of our Republic. It is Mueller and his posse of Clinton contributors that needs to be investigated.
