President Trump has not asked Harvard constitutional law scholar Alan Dershowitz to advise his impeachment defense strategy, and the two haven’t talked in several weeks, the Washington Examiner has learned.
“He called me about some issues relating to pardons a few weeks ago,” Dershowitz told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
Trump was interested in the concept of a trial penalty, whereby a person incurs a harsher sentence if they plead not guilty and goes to trial than if they plead guilty, he said. “I urged him to take a serious look.”
During his final weeks in office, Trump has pardoned 41 people, including Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; longtime adviser Roger Stone; and Paul Manafort, his 2016 campaign manager. He also commuted eight sentences.
After the pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, reports claimed Trump was considering Dershowitz and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani for his impeachment defense strategy, but the legal expert said he had not been asked.
Dershowitz, who aided Trump’s impeachment defense in the Senate trial last year, said that he planned to continue “defending the First Amendment and the Constitution in the court of public opinion” but didn’t think another trial in the Senate would occur.
“If the president were to ask me for advice, I would suggest that he challenge the jurisdiction of the Senate to try a former president, to try a private citizen,” he said.
Asked if he would defend Trump, Dershowitz said he would not entertain a hypothetical but said there was no prospect of this currently.
“I have no current plans to defend the president,” he said.
In an episode of The Dershow on Wednesday, Dershowitz said there may be “some moral blame” attributable to those who urged the protest on the U.S. Capitol last week. “Not legal blame,” he added.
“It’s the fault of the rioters. It’s the fault of those who planned the riots,” he continued. “There may even be some blame to go around for those who advocated it. Not legal blame, but moral blame, certainly, if the violence was in anyway foreseeable.”
He advised establishing a “9/11-type commission” akin to the independent, bipartisan investigation into the events that led up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
After pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol last week, Democrats charged Trump with an impeachment article accusing the president of inciting an insurrection. He was impeached in the House on Wednesday with the votes of 10 Republicans, 232-197.
