Posted on 06/17/2023 8:57:20 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
We previously reported on Harvard Law Professor Emeritus, Alan Dershowitz sharing his thoughts on the politically-motivated prosecution of former President Donald Trump in Miami.
Now Dershowitz, one of Trump’s attorneys during the first impeachment trial, is giving an insider view of what he says is intense pressure by one liberal group intent on keeping attorneys from working on Trump’s behalf.
In Thursday’s edition of his Substack newsletter, entitled “Why Donald Trump Cannot Get a Top-Tier Lawyer,” he lodges some damning accusations. After stating that the former president has been arraigned and pled not guilty to the classified documents charges, Dershowitz writes of Trump’s current legal team on that case:
….He was represented by two lawyers, neither of whom he apparently wants to lead his defense at trial. He has been interviewing Florida lawyers, and several top ones have declined. I know, because I have spoken to them. There are disturbing suggestions that among the reasons lawyers are declining the case is because they fear legal and career reprisals.
There is a nefarious group that calls itself The 65 Project that has as its goal to intimidate lawyers into not representing Trump or anyone associated with him. They have threatened to file bar charges against any such lawyers.
Dershowitz notes that this isn’t the first time he’s written about the group — an action that placed him on their “target” list, he says:
When these threats first emerged, I wrote an op-ed offering to defend pro bono any lawyers that The 65 Project goes after. So The 65 Project immediately went after me, and contrived a charge based on a case in which I was a constitutional consultant, but designed to send a message to potential Trump lawyers: if you defend Trump or anyone associated with him, we will target you and find something to charge you with. The lawyers to whom I spoke are fully aware of this threat — and they are taking it seriously.
He readily admits that “[t]here may be other reasons” why lawyers might choose not to work for Donald Trump, including the fact that he’s a challenging client to handle. But he says that isn’t enough to explain what he’s observing and hearing from others in the legal sphere. Another reason could be the nature of the case itself, which “….will be a difficult case to defend and an unpopular one with many in the legal profession and in general population.”
Dershowitz compares The 65 Project’s web of actions meant to hurt Trump’s ability to retain competent counsel to the Joseph McCarthy era:
This case is different: the threats to the lawyers are greater than at any time since McCarthyism. Nor is the comparison to McCarthyism a stretch. I recall during the 1950s how civil liberties lawyers, many of whom despised communism, were cancelled, and attacked if they dared to represent people accused of being communists. Even civil liberties organizations stayed away from such cases, for fear that it would affect their fundraising and general standing in the community.
He goes on to describe how he was “cancelled” after acting as an attorney during the impeachment trial:
It may even be worse today, as I can attest from my own personal experiences, having defended Trump against an unconstitutional impeachment in 2020. I was cancelled by my local library, community center and synagogue. Old friends refused to speak to me and threatened others who did. My wife, who disagreed with my decision to defend Trump, was also ostracized. There were physical threats to my safety.
The former law professor references what he calls “the John Adams standard” in the American legal system. Adams “too was attacked for defending the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre, but his representation of these accused killers now serves as a symbol of the 6th Amendment right to counsel.”
He continues, warning that The 65 Project’s “chilling” effect is putting that constitutional right in peril:
That symbol has now been endangered by The 65 Project and others who are participating in its McCarthyite chilling of lawyers who have been asked to represent Trump and those associated with him.
Dershowitz rounds up his piece with the most damning allegation, if it turns out to be true, about how Stanley Woodward, the attorney for Trump’s co-defendent, Waltine Nauta, may be under threat, which my colleague Nick Arama recently wrote about:
[Former DNI John] Ratcliffe alleged that a member of Jack Smith’s special counsel team had threatened “a lawyer representing President Trump’s personal valet,” Walt Nauta, and that the lawyer [Stanley Woodward] had to “flip” Nauta. Otherwise, the lawyer might not get the position as a judge he was aiming for.
Arama followed-up with a report that former Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Sharf has also spoken out against this alleged attack on Woodward and his career.
While Dershowitz says he hasn’t personally seen evidence that the allegation is true, if it is, “then it represents a direct attack on the 6th Amendment.”
Dersh is the epitome of one who would turn his back on anything that was “TOOOOOOOOOO HAAAAAAARD”
LET’S have everyone else fight for our freedoms, but not ME!!!
This group needs to be identified, with every single person involved charged with multiple felonies to have their bank accounts drained which they won’t need while serving 50 to life in prison. Let all monies from fines go to make their victims as whole as possible.
Is this not terrorism?
I’m sure Dershowitz has paid plenty for his candor regarding Trump. He’s among the few outliers that I consider to be respectful of the partisan traditions that were arguably tolerable.
“That’s a nice little law firm you got there. Be a real shame if something happened to it.”
It’s just the obamanites being complete and thorough in preventing any progress by the last boy scout, president Trump. They have to protect their death to America agenda and one man stands in the way.
Thats why the weaponization of all government agencies is so apparent, as well as the bogus charges and harassment.
Terrorism? Go walk a mile in his shoes.
Worst part is the machine has just started out on its tyrannical and oppressive trajectory. This is just the beginning of the last phase of America. Guaranteed, anyone who stands in their way will be destroyed
It used to be that we the people put the government in place, and we could remove them. Now, the cancerous obamanites will not be removed even with changes in the straw man presidents office.
Tyranny and oppression?
This is just the beginning of the end of liberty rights and freedom. And the beginning of a Marxist /muslim utopia
This agenda is not about destroying America, but in doing so its the reshaping of the world.
The ABA and Big Pharma are cut from the same cloth.
This group needs to be identified, with every single person involved charged with multiple felonies to have their bank accounts drained which they won’t need while serving 50 to life in prison. Let all monies from fines go to make their victims as whole as possible.
Isn’t this how they nailed the Klan? Conspiracy to deprive civil rights or some such.
They have threatened to file bar charges against any such lawyers.
That’s about as China as it can get the communists are banking on a 2024 win futile rashes to ensue.
Generally useless career lib lawyer, really just running his mouth about something true for a change.
Why, yes, yes it is. But not really, because they are commie-crats who know what’s best for everyone, /sarc
Once identified, they need to all have accidents and turn up in dumpsters. Our ancestors knew: “The only good commie is a dead commie”. They won’t stop until then.
Oh, no! Not a “direct attack on the Sixth Amendment”!!!
What about the ongoing attempt to erase Article II, section 1 which started on Elm Street In Dallas and hasn’t really let up since then?
We must pray for Divine intervention
Every member of the group needs to be outed and we need to find the common threads.
I don’t know anything about that outfit. Didn’t see any glaring red flags on that page.
Problem is the prosecutor can’t hide the documents in the trial. That being the case, there is no reason Trump can’t release them now.
I’m pretty sure the FBI seized the documents in the raid so, no, he can’t release them.
My understanding is that the prosecutor is withholding the documents from Trump’s lawyers NOW when they need to be using them to prepare their defense. As well as withholding the subpoena for the raid which they need for the same reason.
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