Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, and First Lady Melania leave the White House in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2021.
Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, shared his expert opinion on free speech and the second impeachment of former President Trump (D-NY) in an interview with Cindy Drukier, host of the English-language New Tang Dynasty’s The Voice of the Nation.
Since the break-in at Congress on January 6, Democratic members of the House and Senate have sought to impeach Trump for inciting a riot. On Friday (Jan. 22), the Democratic-controlled House rejected a request by the Republican Senate minority leader to delay impeachment and will send a second impeachment charge against Trump to the Senate this Monday (Jan. 25).
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), for his part, announced that the Senate will begin impeachment hearings the week of Feb. 8.
But Dershowitz said on those impeachment charges that Trump’s call for peaceful patriotic demonstrations during a joint session of Congress did not substantially promote violent actions, and that in the United States it has long been customary to distinguish between advocates and perpetrators, meaning the law should go after the person committing the crime, not the speaker, saying the principle dates back to a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801.
Jefferson was the third president of the United States of America (1801-1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most influential of the founding fathers of the United States.
In response to the Senate’s possible impeachment proposal this week, Dershowitz said that in the Senate, members would need a majority vote to try the case, requiring a two-thirds vote to convict, or conversely, they could choose to vote against trying the case.
Dershowitz noted that even if Democrats, who now hold a majority in the Senate, could vote to put the former president on trial, “however that trial would be an unconstitutional act.”
“In my own view, and not one shared by other liberal scholars, the Senate conviction would be null and void, and Mr. Trump, Citizen Trump, could not worry about the outcome. If he decides to run for president in 2024, he should be free to do so. And the court will have to decide whether the Senate has the authority to decide who the presidential nominee will be in 2024.”
Dershowitz believes that if the impeachment trial continues it will take a long Time and all the focus will then be back on Trump again, which is not good for the Democrats or America.
Finally, as for the question of what recourse Trump can take to uphold the Constitution, Dershowitz said he can file a lawsuit in federal district court claiming he is being pursued for unconstitutionality.
Dershowitz also said that Trump may find it more difficult to confront him because of the “massive campaign” in the direction of censorship by a group of “well-meaning, dedicated, but uncomprehending” people. He argued that because these people are cloaked in progressivism and have good intentions, the movement has become much more dangerous than McCarthyism, which is not supported by the mainstream media.
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