GOP senators seemed enthralled with Dershowitz's Trump impeachment defense. Elizabeth Warren found it 'nonsensical.'
Celebrity defense lawyer and retired Harvard criminal law professor Alan Dershowitz closed out Day 2 of President Trump's impeachment trial defense Monday night, and unlike Trump's other defenders, he mentioned inconvenient new revelations from Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton. Dershowitz also differentiated himself by eschewing attacks on Joe and Hunter Biden or the unkindness of impeachment and instead mounted a "constitutional" defense of Trump. Republican senators appeared thrilled with the presentation.
Dershowitz seized the attention of GOP senators like no other speaker I’ve seen at the trial. There were no empty seats. Sens who never take notes were writing furiously. Sen. Scott applauded at end and many later went over to shake Dersh’s hand and slap his back.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) January 28, 2020
Other legal scholars were less impressed. Dershowitz argued that the articles of impeachment approved by the House, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, are not "constitutionally authorized criteria for impeachment."
He went on to acknowledge that Bolton may claim he personally witnessed Trump link $391 million in Ukraine military aid to foreign help investigating Biden and Trump's other Democratic rivals, but argued that "nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense."
Dershowitz also conceded he held different views on whether abuse of power was an impeachable offense back in 1998, during President Bill Clinton's impeachment, but said he "was not fully aware of the compelling counterarguments" then and has reached a different conclusion after conducting his own research.
One of the few constitutional scholars he cited, Harvard Law's Niko Bowie, dismantled Dershowitz's argument on Twitter and in a new New York Times op-ed. Former Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, now a senator-juror and Democratic presidential candidate, also found Derhowitz's argument "nonsensical" and abstruse.
"...and that we should not be using the president's intent as part of understanding impeachment. Criminal law is all about intent. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. That's the very basis of it. So it makes his whole presentation just nonsensical. I truly could not follow it"
— Emma Loop (@LoopEmma) January 28, 2020
"Alan Dershowitz, to his credit, said that his own view was very much a minority view of what the impeachment provision means," CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said. "To his discredit, the reason why it's a minority view is because he's wrong."
More stories from theweek.com
John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi
It's 2020 and women are exhausted
Stephen Colbert's Late Show rings in 'The Age of Impeachment' with a groovy song
