Alan Dershowitz argued his theory that there has to be a crime for a president to be impeached by telling the Senate, that his theory is not bonkers.
Dershowitz said, “I’m arguing. Is that purely noncriminal conduct, including abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, are outside the range of impeachable offenses. That is the key argument I’m presenting today….Similar views were expressed by some state courts, others disagreed. Curtis considered views and those of Dwight Russell and others based on careful study of the text in history are not bonkers, absurdists, legal claptrap or other demeaning epithets.”
Video:
Dershowitz literally argues on the Senate floor that his theory is not "bonkers." When a lawyer has to argue before the jury that his theory isn't nuts, it's never a good sign. #ImpeachmentTrial pic.twitter.com/puOMlNhN5J
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 28, 2020
Dershowitz argued that if academics and constitutional scholars disagreed with him, it was their problem and it meant that they were wrong. Dershowitz is a man alone on a sinking intellectual island of his own construction.
No other scholar or expert agrees with Dershowitz, and it is never a good sign when a lawyer has to defend his argument as not bonkers.
This is the argument that Trump wanted in primetime for the country. What has been presented on the president’s behalf is a sort of constitutional fan fiction that has no relationship to the accepted legal and constitutional interpretations of impeachment.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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