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Speaker 1: our part, Speaking of truth telling, it's a great pleasure
Speaker 1: to welcome back to the Armstrong and Getty Show. Allen Dershwitz, lawyer,
Speaker 1: Harvard law professor, author, commentator, etcetera. Mr Dershwitz, how are you, sir?
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. How are you? Thank you? It's good
Speaker 1: to talk. So, before we get into the case against
Speaker 1: impeaching Trump, how much does it bother you that you
Speaker 1: are an anomaly in that you are willing to just
Speaker 1: apply what you see is the truth of the law,
Speaker 1: regardless of party. In other words, you don't put a
Speaker 1: partisan slant on things that that really I try very
Speaker 1: hard to do that every single day. Obviously you do too.
Speaker 1: But I think we're you know, we're we're like unicorns.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to do that. But you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think we'll unicorns my book, The Case against the
Speaker 1: Teaching Trump has become a man a time settella, which
Speaker 1: means people are reading. People I think want to hear
Speaker 1: all sides of the issue. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: academics and university professors so they want they know the truth,
Speaker 1: and they want to shut down debate. They want to
Speaker 1: save spaces and triggle mind. But I think the average
Speaker 1: American wants the rual side of issue, and they're able
Speaker 1: to do it. And you know that's why I just
Speaker 1: recommend beat the book. It's a hundred fifty pages. If
Speaker 1: you disagree with it, fine, but you know, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: persuade you, maybe you'll persuade me. But here on Month's Vineyard,
Speaker 1: people are saying, no, no no, no, we don't We don't
Speaker 1: even want to hear what you have to say because
Speaker 1: it might benefit Trump, and anything that's benefits Trump is
Speaker 1: something we don't want to hear. We don't even want
Speaker 1: to allow it to be heard. At the attitude here
Speaker 1: on Month's Vineyard among some people, well, given the vagueness
Speaker 1: of the Constitution in terms of what is an impeachable offense.
Speaker 1: Give us the longest short of your theory. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's that vague. It says, you know, we
Speaker 1: rejected the notion of maladministration as grounds for impeachment and
Speaker 1: instead required that they'd be convictioned by the Senate two
Speaker 1: thirds of a crime, either treason, bribery, or other high
Speaker 1: crimes and misdemeanors. Those are all crimes. And so I
Speaker 1: think you have to prove that a president actively engaged
Speaker 1: in a crime before you can impeach. And we can
Speaker 1: impeach them because you disagree with what he said at
Speaker 1: a press conference in Helsinki, which I disagree with. You
Speaker 1: can't do it because you don't like his policies on
Speaker 1: the border or separating families. It has to find a crime,
Speaker 1: and that's where I disagree with many of my colleagues,
Speaker 1: and I think I lay at the argument very carefully,
Speaker 1: and the crime has to be a high crime, not
Speaker 1: a low crime. So I think Clinton was not properly
Speaker 1: impeached of Bill Clinton because his crime was a low crime. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to Hamilton's in his own life. Hamilton was
Speaker 1: one of the drafters and he wrote The Federalist paper
Speaker 1: about impeachment. He himself committed a low crime. He paid
Speaker 1: extortion to prevent an adulteress affair from being made public,
Speaker 1: but he didn't use public funds. He issued a statement
Speaker 1: to that effect, admitting it. But the reason is because
Speaker 1: if he had used public funds as a Treasury secretary,
Speaker 1: it would have been a high crime. But using his
Speaker 1: own funds to cover up adultery, he was a low crime,
Speaker 1: not impeachable. And that's why he was prepared to make
Speaker 1: that distinction. And it's a distinction that I think is
Speaker 1: made in the Constitution. And it certainly seems like we
Speaker 1: should be worried about a precedent that it would set
Speaker 1: if Democrats take control of Congress and do impeach President Trump,
Speaker 1: whether he's convicted or not, that we've just, you know,
Speaker 1: lowered the bar for what we consider impeachable. I think
Speaker 1: that's right, and I always try to impose on myself
Speaker 1: and others the shoelan, the other Pook test, if the
Speaker 1: shore run the other foot, Hillary Clinton, what position it
Speaker 1: would he be taking. I know what position I'd be taking,
Speaker 1: and I think everybody has to meet that challenge. I
Speaker 1: wrote a book cuotes the fame Injustice and Zomigo in
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court wrote versus Bush versus Gore, and which
Speaker 1: I said, if it had been Gore versus Bush, if
Speaker 1: the show had been on the other foot, I think
Speaker 1: the case probably would have done out differently. And that's
Speaker 1: not the way the Supreme Court or the Congress should behave.
Speaker 1: There should be a single test, no matter who the
Speaker 1: president is. Alan Dershowitz on the line, you said in
Speaker 1: the last day or so that the Justice Department really
Speaker 1: ill served the president by coming out with the indictment
Speaker 1: of the Russian UH spooks right before the meeting in Healthinki.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Well, I think well,
Speaker 1: I think that Justice Corman should say at a politics
Speaker 1: instead of foreign policy, it was absolutely no reason to
Speaker 1: have the indictment come down just before the President went
Speaker 1: to have a meeting with Prudent. It would have been
Speaker 1: far far better and nobody would have lost anything if
Speaker 1: the indictment came down today or next week. And the
Speaker 1: indictment is a show indictment, nobody's everything to be brought
Speaker 1: to trial. Uh. These folks, that twelve of them, are
Speaker 1: not going to come to Disneyland and allow themselves to
Speaker 1: be served and arrested, and they're not going to be extraduised,
Speaker 1: so we'll never know what the proof is, what the
Speaker 1: evid this will never know whether they would want or
Speaker 1: lost the case. And indictment is just a charge. And remember,
Speaker 1: as a judge of New York one said, a prosecutor
Speaker 1: can get grandeur do indict a ham sandwich. So let's
Speaker 1: not place too much weight on an indictment that will
Speaker 1: never come to trial. The book is The Case Against
Speaker 1: Impeaching Trump by Alan Dershowitz, And you're making that argument.
Speaker 1: But I read an interview the other day in which
Speaker 1: you laundry listed the Trump policies you don't agree with,
Speaker 1: and it seemed it was practically every Trump policy that
Speaker 1: exists you don't agree with. Yet you wrote a book
Speaker 1: like this. What is that causing you any stress in
Speaker 1: your personal life? The people are saying, dude, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? Yeah, it does, and people are attacking me
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, if you're uh Clinton person against Trump,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be writing this book. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: have to write this book. All my life. I defended
Speaker 1: people I disagreed with. I defended the rights of Nazister
Speaker 1: and Marks, there's skip Illinois. I defended communist when I
Speaker 1: was a college student. You know, I hated and still
Speaker 1: hate communism. Um. So it's been my life to defend
Speaker 1: principles and not to ask myself whether I like or
Speaker 1: support the person about whom the principle will to whom
Speaker 1: the principle is being applied. So I think, I think
Speaker 1: that I think that is more important to me anyway
Speaker 1: into the national discussion than anything you write, the fact
Speaker 1: that you're going with principles as opposed to your partisan leanings. Amen.
Speaker 1: I tried very hard to apply to myself. I hope
Speaker 1: everybody applies that to themselves, because our Constitution was written
Speaker 1: not for Democrats or Republicans, not for black or white,
Speaker 1: not for you or than as a Southern, as recurring
Speaker 1: for everybody, and we have to apply it equally to everybody.
Speaker 1: And that's the shoe on the other foot test that
Speaker 1: I always apply to myself and to others well, just too.
Speaker 1: In the very few seconds we have left to return
Speaker 1: to Jack's question of a moment ago, does anybody actually
Speaker 1: refer to you as dude at this point in your life? Ellen, Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh Man. Alan Dershowitz, lawyer, and Harvard law professor. We
Speaker 1: know you're pressed for time, but we appreciate the conversation
Speaker 1: very much. Hope we can do it again. The book,
Speaker 1: The Case against Impeaching Trump, It's say it's a good
Speaker 1: solid helping of truth without uh in principle, without worrying
Speaker 1: about partisanship. Great to talk, Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: The shoe is on the other foot. Test that is
Speaker 1: what you have to do. Absolutely, God, dang it. I
Speaker 1: think he I think. I think the reason it's the
Speaker 1: best selling book though, is a bunch of people who
Speaker 1: really like Donald Trump and wouldn't apply this same principle
Speaker 1: to Hillary right are buying the book. Politics is a
Speaker 1: stilly business and ugly. Marshall's News is next on the
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty Show. When you're ready to ride Metro,
Speaker 1: we want you to know we're ready for you. Here
Speaker 1: are just a few of the people at Metro to
Speaker 1: tell you how we're doing our part to keep writers safe.
Speaker 1: We're cleaning before you've found halfs out of suns of
Speaker 1: statist no mask, no metro need on. We have a
Speaker 1: few extras at Metro. We're doing our part to keep
Speaker 1: the d C area moving. Find out more at will
Speaker 1: Not a dot com slash doing our part