Posted on 02/12/2021 2:58:14 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Attorney Alan Dershowitz has criticized the House impeachment managers for going on 'too long' in presenting their case against Donald Trump to the Senate, where he is charged with inciting the January 6 Capitol riot.
Dershowitz, who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial but is on the sidelines for the second, was reacting after House Democrats acting as prosecutors rested their case on Thursday. Trump's defense team will make their case on Friday.
'The Democrats overplayed their hand today, they went on too long, too repetitious, they should have rested yesterday,' Dershowitz told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday.
'I think the Republicans -- the lawyers [on Trump's defense team] -- will do a good job by making it neat and clean, and to the point and short,' he added.
Dershowitz predicted that Trump's attorney's would present two lines of defense: first, that the Senate does not have jurisdiction to convict a former president, and second, that Trump's remarks to a crowd during a speech before the riot were protected by the First Amendment.
He urged Trump's legal team to present a concise case and wrap up quickly, after defense attorney Bruce Castor delivered a disastrous soliloquy on Tuesday that even Trump's allies characterized as rambling and pointless.
Dershowitz, a civil libertarian and free speech advocate, also slammed 140 constitutional scholars who this week penned a letter demanding that Trump's attorneys not defend him on free speech grounds, arguing it 'would be legally frivolous.'
The letter carries an implicit threat, as the rules of professional responsibility prohibit an attorney from making frivolous arguments and carry disciplinary sanctions for those who do.
'I hope the defense attorneys for Trump don't listen and make that argument, and I've offered to defend them in front of any bar association,' Dershowitz said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The “140 scholars” are the ones who should be brought before the bar for discipline. The wrote an extortion letter to a group of attorneys in an attempt to prevent a person from having legal representation. Seems like there are at least very serious violations of law made by these ‘scholars”.
In conferences, this is called “talking past your point”. Nothing is added to the discussion, you are only setting yourself up for confrontation and refutation.
Any wise prosecutor already knows this. And if they have a lick of sense, any defense lawyer knows the same thing.
I was watching Newsmax, with Bob Sellers and Mark Halperin talking with others about how the impeachment vote will go.
They and others were just talking about what a great case the Repubs put on, then all of a sudden they switch to how the vote should go politically; what the repubs should do to get suburban voters, what Mc Connell will do, etc.
Not one mention of Trump’s guilt or innocence!
Who cares about future votes? Trump needs a fair vote NOW!
Everytime someone dredges up “140 scholars”, “50 former intelligence officials” or “250 ex prosecutors” to give gravitas to some absurd narrative, it is reminiscent of the “100 prominent German physicists” who signed a letter disparaging Albert Einsteins theories in the 1920’s.
I agree. It was a great statement by Einstein and I think of it every time one of these arguments based on numbers is raised.
I don’t know why Dershowitz wasn’t on the defense team this time.
Dude, where are all the hippie civil libertarians I grew up with? SMH
He has given many opinions of his own along the way.
Indon’t know why Dershowitz is still a Democrat???
Truth be told, what the democrat sham-peachment managers did with their presentation, could have been done in one hour or less. They wanted to create the perception that there was a lot of evidence against Trump, while the reality was that there was none. Zero, Zilch, Nada. Lots of words full of emptiness.
Everything they did was very repetitive, and when one manager was done, the next came in to repeat the same rant. In fact, the whole thing was idiotic, and the American people were made to endure another episode of Trump Derangement Syndrome by the democrats.
Poor things.
Brilliant! I was furious over the 50 former intelligence officials who somehow knew that the Hunter Biden story was Russian disinformation. I shall cite your comparison to the 100 German physicists going forward. Nice indeed.
This whole impeachment is 'legally frivolous'...just like their first impeachment. There is no evidence to support a charge of 'inciting an insurrection'. The First Amendment defense is unnecessary. Whether it is 'frivolous' or not is irrelevant.
One cannot 'incite' an activity which had been previously planned.
Further, 'incite' means to whip-up or spur-on others to participate in something. What is 'frivolous' is to maintain that anything President Trump said in that speech was inciting others to engage in 'insurrection'.
Always puzzles me.
~George Orwell
Dershowitz offered his service a few times, IIRC. I don’t know why PDJT didn’t take him up on it.
Same. He’s too logical and reasonable to be in with the bat crazies.
I don’t know why Dershowitz was not involved. But I do think that nobody could have improved on van der Veen’s performance. On the impeachment thread, I dubbed van der Veen the “nasty Dershowitz”.
I like Dershowitz
Sp?
He’s smart and fair minded.
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