Dershowitz Repeats, Read the Constitution! Articles of Impeachment Don’t Meet Its Criteria

Jan. 19, 2020 (EIRNS)—In several interviews over the past couple of days, constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz, now part of the President’s legal team in the impeachment trial, continues to hammer away at one key point: that the articles of impeachment submitted against President Donald Trump do not meet the criteria for impeachment as outlined in the Constitution and intended by the framers.

Speaking on MSNBC on Jan. 17, Dershowitz said that the Democrats’ charge that Trump is guilty of “abuse of power,” is meaningless because it’s not an impeachable offense.

“Abuse of power, even if proved, is not an impeachable offense. That’s exactly what the framers rejected. They didn’t want to give Congress the authority to remove a President because he abused his power. They have to prove treason, they have to prove bribery, or they have to prove other crimes and misdemeanors,”

And, as he elaborated with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” today, “When you read the text of the Constitution, treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, ‘other’ really means that crimes and misdemeanors must be akin—akin to treason and bribery.”

Dershowitz has emphasized that his role in the impeachment trial will be to argue the specific issue of constitutional criteria for impeachment, making “what could be the most important argument on the floor.” He told CNN’s “State of the Union” today that he will be paraphrasing Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis who was chief counsel during the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson in 1868, and will argue that the framers intended impeachable conduct to mean “criminal-like conduct.” Neither of the charges against President Trump qualify as criminal-like conduct, he said.