Dershowitz Argues, Dems’ Impeachment Driving for a Parliamentary System, When We Want a Republic

Dec. 11, 2019 (EIRNS)—In a Dec. 8 interview with Fox News’s “Life, Liberty & Levin” show, hosted by Mark Levin, Alan Dershowitz, a scholar of constitutional law, lambasted as unconstitutional the Democrats’ drive to impeach President Trump on the vague charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and warned that should this process advance on these charges, it would move the United States dangerously close to becoming a British-style parliamentary system. We don’t want that, he said. “We want a republic.”

The “abuse of power” charges do not meet the four criteria established by the Constitution for impeaching a President—bribery, treason and high crimes and misdemeanors—he said, and to pursue them would constitute “an utter abuse of power of Congress.” He pointed out that Alexander Hamilton warned in Federalist Paper No. 65 that the greatest danger in this process would be if impeachment were based on the number of people each party had.

“If impeachment turns on the fact that the Democrats now have a majority in the House but not in the Senate, that would be a complete abuse of what the framers had in mind ... they have created open-ended criteria which bear no relationship to the words of the Constitution itself.”

Anyone in Congress who votes to impeach President Trump “without finding that he is guilty of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors is violating their oath of office.”

“If President Trump is impeached,” Dershowitz warned, “it will set a terrible precedent which will weaponize impeachment,” such that any future Democrat, or anyone, could be impeached on the charge of abuse of power. “It’s hard to find any President—modern President, old President—that can’t be accused of abuse of power,” he underscored. “If you go through the lexicon of political opposition over the years, you’ll find the words ‘abuse of power’ used by virtually every opponent of every President, and yet ... when they had these hearings, all we heard about was abuse of power, abuse of authority,” etc., etc.

“How many foreign policy decisions have been made by Presidents over the years in order to help them get reelected?” Dershowitz asked.

“If we start making that an impeachable offense, there’ll be no Presidents left, and we’ll have the English system, which is what James Madison said we don’t want. In the English system, the prime minister serves at the will of the Parliament. The minute the Parliament says, ‘we don’t have any faith in you,’ he’s gone, vote of no confidence. That’s exactly what we didn’t want to empower the Congress to do in the United States.”

“We don’t want a British parliamentary system. We want a republic, and a republic requires a strong President who has to run for reelection every four years. That’s the ultimate protection.” And, “if you want to amend the Constitution to include abuse of power ... then amend the Constitution, but don’t make it up as you go along. Four criteria; if they’re not met, Congress does not have the power or the authority legitimately to impeach the President.”