OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Famed Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz offered some unofficial legal counsel to House Republican leaders on the heels of the Justice Department’s indictment of former President Donald Trump on Thursday.
“If I were a Republican leader, what I would do is draft a potential indictment against [President Joe] Biden and his son [Hunter Biden] based on the information that’s now available and present that in the court of public opinion in juxtaposition with the indictment that will come down on Tuesday, and let the public judge whether or not there’s a single standard of justice,” he told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo on Friday.
He went on to warn of the “dangerous” consequences of charging a former president, especially on allegations that he says appear “weak” on the surface.
“It has to be at least as strong as the case against Richard Nixon, which we will remember led not to Democrats to demand his resignation, but Republicans, his own colleagues came to him and said, this case is so strong that we can’t support you,” Dershowitz said on “Mornings with Maria.”
“I haven’t seen any suggestion that Republicans agree with this indictment,” the professor continued.
Trump announced late on Thursday that he has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges connected to his handling of classified materials that were found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last August.
The 37-count indictment includes charges of “willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, a scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations,” ABC News reported.
“Maximum sentences for the respective charges, per their statutes, range from five up to 20 years, although any eventual sentence should Trump be convicted would likely be much lower,” the outlet added.
“Any eventual sentence should Trump be convicted would likely be much lower,” ABC noted in its report.
Dershowitz said, “If this indictment is as weak as it appears to be, from what has been disclosed so far, it may be the most dangerous indictment in political history.”
“As everybody knows, it’s the first time that a man who is the leading candidate against the incumbent president has been indicted by the incumbent administration in an effort to prevent him from running,” Dershowitz noted further.
The law professor emeritus noted that it is his belief that the indictment is more “to go after the leading candidate against the president.”
“It’s an extraordinarily dangerous indictment, potentially dangerous to the rule of law, dangerous to the neutral application of criminal justice, and dangerous to establishing a precedent that each side will weaponize the criminal justice system against their political opponents,” Dershowitz told Bartiromo. “That’s not America.”
He said voters should be able to cast a ballot for a candidate who aligns more with their economic, social, and foreign policy preferences rather than “who’s more criminal.”
“Look, I voted, myself, against Trump twice. I have a constitutional right to vote against him a third time on the merits, and that right shouldn’t be taken away from me by politicians, by attorneys general, by judges, by jurors,” he said.
“If this becomes a politically divided prosecution, where the Republicans are on one side, the Democrats are on the other, it moves the election out of the polling booth to the courthouse,” Dershowitz continued. “And that’s not where elections ought to be held.”
Trump is scheduled to appear at a federal courthouse in Miami at 3 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.
“The SAME DAY @GOPoversight is shown a document by the FBI showing evidence that Biden and his son were each paid $5 million dollars by a foreign national the DOJ indicts Trump. Coincidental? I think not,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) tweeted.
