Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz chided critics of President Trump’s remarks at this week’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin for comparing it to attacks against the Jews during Kristallnacht.
“To compare what President Trump did to the Holocaust or to Kristallnacht is a form of Holocaust denial,” Dershowitz said Friday on Fox News’ “Hannity.” “Because what it suggests is that nothing more happened to the Jews than is happening today in America. It suggests that there were no gas chambers, there were no killing fields, there was no plan to kill six million Jews.”
He said people who make such “disgraceful” comparisons are forgetting the suffering that millions of Jews endured during the Holocaust.
Dershowitz, a Democrat who has defended Trump throughout special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, also shrugged off suggestions that the president’s comments were treasonous after he refused to hold Russia accountable for interfering in the 2016 election during the Helsinki press conference. Trump instead repeated his “witch hunt” attack against Mueller’s investigation. In the days since the joint appearance with Putin, Trump and the White House have sought to clarify the president’s remarks, but the follow-up comments have left their own wake of confusion.
Dershowitz said Trump’s comments weren’t treasonous because such an act consists only “in levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”
“You can’t just throw that term around,” Dershowitz insisted. “It’s the only crime defined specifically in the Constitution.”
[Opinion: John Brennan, famous for lying and spying on the Senate, baselessly accuses Trump of treason]
