Dershowitz's Chutzpah on The Abuse of Power Defense

With the impeachment trial of President Trump getting under way in the Senate today, Alan Dershowitz made the rounds on television over the weekend with the abuse of power defense. Simply put, while Dershowitz denies Trump abused his power, but even if he did it is not an impeachable offense. Dershowitz told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week:


When you have somebody who, for example, is indicted for a crime, let's assume you have a lot of evidence but the grand jury simply indicts for something that's not a crime, and that's what happened here. The vote was to impeach on abuse of power, which is not within the constitutional criteria for impeachment, and obstruction of Congress.


But Dershowitz made a far different argument where it concerned impeachment proceedings against President Clinton in 1998:


It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty. You don’t need a technical crime.


Talk about chutzpah. I wonder what Dershowitz is charging Trump for his revised legal opinion. I also wonder if Trump will stiff Dershowitz on the legal bills just as he has stiffed his contractors. When you serve a snake you are bound to be bitten. All the chutzpah in the world cannot save you from a snake's poison.


Contrary to what Dershowitz now argues, Trump has corrupted the presidency in such a way that we don't know where the Trump Organization ends and the White House begins. Where it concerns military aid to Ukraine, there was no other reason to uphold funds authorized by Congress other than to damage Joe Biden, his likely opponent in the 2020 presidential election. Would Republicans tolerate this behavior in a Democratic President? If this isn't a corruption of the office of the President of the United States, an abuse of public trust and a danger to our liberty due to it advancing the interests of our Russian adversaries then nothing is.


It is also damaging when the President's corruption, abuse of public trust and endangerment of liberty spreads and infects once admirable people like Alan Dershowitz.