Alan Dershowitz Archives - The Arizona Sun Times

Alan Dershowitz Commentary: No; The 14th Amendment Can’t Disqualify Trump

August 15, 2023August 14, 2023 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Several academics — including members of the conservative Federalist Society — are now arguing that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits Donald Trump from becoming president. They focus on the language that prohibits anyone who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion…or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from holding “any office.” The amendment provides no mechanism for determining whether a candidate falls within this disqualification, though it says that “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.” Significantly, the text does not authorize Congress — or any other body or individual — to impose the disqualification in the first place.

Obama-Appointed Judge Awards $122,200 in Sanctions Against Kari Lake’s Attorneys for Lawsuit over Voting Machine Tabulators

July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 Rachel Alexander

U.S. District Court Judge John Tuchi, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, awarded sanctions in December against Kari Lake’s and Mark Finchem’s attorneys over their lawsuit against electronic voting machine tabulators in December. In his July 14 order, he emphasized that the sanctions are to be used “only in the most egregious situations” and as a “deterrent” to others who might be considering similar lawsuits.
Lake addressed the sanctions during an interview Wednesday on The Colonel of Truth. “I sued to get rid of the machines in Arizona about a year before the election,” she said. “No, actually, I’m sorry. About six months. An Obama judge threw the case out, tried to sanction our attorneys. We took it to the 9th Circuit. They’re sanctioning our attorneys. I tried to prevent the disaster of voting machines with this lawsuit BEFORE the election. We get to the election, the machines break down & they’re saying ‘you shouldn’t have bought it.’”

Commentary: The Case for Impeaching Joe Biden

July 2, 2023July 2, 2023 Arizona Sun Times Staff

When I defended former President Trump against a Democratic effort to impeach and remove him on grounds that I believe are unconstitutional, I predicted that when the Republicans gained control of the House, they would use that precedent as a justification for trying to impeach the next Democratic president.

Sure enough, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has introduced articles of impeachment that replicated what the Democrats had done just three and a half years earlier.

With New Evidence, Congress Unmasks a Multi-Year Government Plot to Protect Biden, Sully Trump

June 26, 2023 Just the News

When the Justice Department discovered from journalists a storage locker containing evidence against ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a search was executed immediately.

Alan Dershowitz Commentary: Trump’s Prosecutors Shouldn’t Get to Use the Word ‘Espionage’

June 26, 2023 Admin

Former President Donald Trump has been charged with a variety of crimes, including violation of the misnamed Espionage Act.

That 1917 statute is misnamed because it covers a great many offenses that don’t involve spying or giving secrets to the enemy. In fact, over the years it has been used extensively against patriotic Americans who have opposed wars and dissented from other government actions.

There Are People in the FBI Who Believe Trump Is Hitler, Alan Dershowitz Says

June 22, 2023 Just the News

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz says that there are people in the FBI who believe that former President Donald Trump is equivalent to Adolf Hitler and are out to get him.

“There are patriots in the FBI who honestly believe that Donald Trump is Adolf Hitler, and anything, anything can be done to get him and that’s what’s destroying our civil liberties,” Dershowitz said on the Wednesday edition of the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show.

Legal Experts: Politically Motivated, Yes, But Trump Could Be in Trouble with Latest Indictment

June 12, 2023June 12, 2023 M.D. Kittle

While many Americans feel former President Donald Trump is the target of a political witch hunt by the Biden administration and its allies, the latest allegations against the Republican Party’s top presidential candidate are troubling, according to a leading constitutional law expert.

Manhattan DA’s Trump Case Rests on Shaky Legal, Ethical Ground, Experts Say

March 19, 2023 Just the News

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday shocked the world with an announcement that he expects to be arrested Tuesday in connection with an ongoing investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a case legal scholars have suggested has a questionable legal basis.

The investigation involves Trump’s 2016 alleged payment of $130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels via his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, whom he later reimbursed.

In Similar Cases to Lake’s and Finchem’s Lawsuit over Electronic Voting Machine Readers, Judges Did Not Order Sanctions Against Attorneys

January 2, 2023January 2, 2023 Rachel Alexander

The judge in Kari Lake’s election challenge lawsuit declined to award sanctions against her attorneys, although he did order her team to pay the costs of the government defendants. However, in a lawsuit Lake filed earlier this year with Mark Finchem contesting the use of electronic voting machine readers, U.S District Judge John Tuchi, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, sanctioned her attorneys.

That lawsuit was filed in April and Tuchi dismissed it in August. Maricopa County asked for sanctions on the grounds that attorneys brought claims to court that were “demonstrably false,” citing “vague” allegations that machine counting can produce inaccurate results. Tuchi said the attorneys acted “recklessly” and in “bad faith.” He ordered Lake and Finchem’s lawyers to pay Maricopa County’s attorneys fees. He warned others considering similar lawsuits, “It is to penalize specific attorney conduct with the broader goal of deterring similarly baseless filings initiated by anyone, whether an attorney or not.”

Alan Dershowitz Predicts DOJ Will Not Indict Trump After Affidavit’s Release

August 28, 2022August 27, 2022 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Friday that he doubted the Justice Department would indict Donald Trump after the agency released the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant authorizing the FBI’s search of the former president’s Florida estate.

FBI Raid of Mar-a-Lago Was ‘Improper’: Dershowitz

August 23, 2022August 22, 2022 Admin

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said that the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida estate was incorrectly conducted.

Earlier in August, FBI agents with the Washington Field Office raided the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home seeking classified documents he may have removed from the White House. Reports subsequently emerged that Trump had already been served with a subpoena seeking classified records related to the investigation and had cooperated extensively with federal authorities.

Kari Lake and Mark Finchem Denounce Maricopa County Supervisor’s Motion for Sanctions over Election Integrity Lawsuit

August 18, 2022August 17, 2022 Rachel Alexander

Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake filed a lawsuit along with Trump-endorsed State Rep. Mark Finchem (R-Oro Valley), who is running for Arizona Secretary of State, in April to block the use of electronic voting machines to count ballots in the 2022 election. The Maricopa County Supervisors responded last week with a motion requesting sanctions against the pair and their attorneys, which include former Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, asserting that the suit was “frivolous.”

Finchem tweeted, “The threatened action by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, is nothing more than the attempted weaponization of the judicial process against the political process. If they can’t stand up to scrutiny for elections, that’s their problem — not our problem. Elections must be secure and trustworthy, Maricopa County has demonstrated neither is the case in the last election. “

Famed Liberal Law Professor Predicts Bannon Convictions Will Be Overturned

July 24, 2022July 23, 2022 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Famed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is predicting that ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction by a jury will be overturned on constitutional grounds.

Commentary: The Clear Case for Joe Biden’s Impeachment

September 1, 2021August 31, 2021 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Alan Dershowitz says calls for the impeachment of Joe Biden are “wrong.” He claims in his most recent op-ed at the D.C. establishment’s favorite Republican rag, The Hill: “Whatever one may think of what Biden did or failed to do, it does not constitute an impeachable offense under the text of the Constitution.” With all due respect, Dershowitz is full of crap.

“The Framers,” Dershowitz writes, “insisted that a president could not be impeached unless he committed criminal-type conduct akin to treason and bribery.” If this is true, then why did President Thomas Jefferson call for the impeachment of a federal district judge on the grounds that he was “a man of loose morals and intemperate habits?” Jefferson was a prominent founder, who greatly influenced the framers of the Constitution.