Legal Scholar Alan Dershowitz, in Parley With the Sun, Calls Prosecution of Trump ‘Nuttiest Thing in the World’

This article has been updated from the bulldog.Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, in an evening with Founder members of The New York Sun, says he is incredulous over the way the Fulton County district attorney in Georgia has handled her affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she handpicked to try President Trump and 18 others for racketeering and other crimes relating to efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election. Her fate now rests with the Georgia Court of Appeals. Professor Alan Dershowitz in conversation with the Associate Editor of the Sun, A.R. Hoffman. May 7, 2024 at Manhattan.Ms. Willis’s prosecution in Georgia makes up the prosecution in just one of four criminal cases now in the courts against Mr. Trump. Mr. Dershowitz, who has practiced law for more than six decades, tells the Sun that nary a one of them would have been brought to court had the defendant’s surname not been “Trump.” The criminal hush money case now being tried at Manhattan does little to impress Mr. Dershowitz, who says that the only surprise of the trial was the disclosure that Mr. Trump wears silk pajamas. “How that is relevant to a case involving making a corporate filing,” he says, “I’ll never know.”At the center of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case are payments to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, from Mr. Trump via his erstwhile attorney, Michael Cohen. The lawyer argues that there has not been a case “in the history of the world” in which someone was charged with failing to disclose or accurately disclose a hush money payment. Mr. Dershowitz asks, “Why would anybody pay hush money if they were required to disclose it? It’s the nuttiest thing in the world.” The recent overturn of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction in New York on the grounds that the trial judge erroneously allowed three women to testify about uncharged crimes before the jury could be of service to Trump’s defense, Mr. Dershowitz tells the Sun. “If I were the prosecutor in the Trump case, I’d be reading the Harvey Weinstein verdict very carefully.” Mr. Dershowitz maintains that the right to a fair trial transcends politics and popularity. He has described himself as “a liberal Democrat in politics, but a neutral civil libertarian when it comes to the Constitution.” The celebrated criminal and civil lawyer has represented the likes of O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, Jeffrey Epstein, and Weinstein. Mr. Dershowitz says that he defends “some of the worst people in the world,” adding, “and thank God for that.” “Would anybody want to live in a country where the majority of people charged with a crime were innocent?” Mr. Dershowitz asked the crowd of more than 50 people. “That would be Iran, that would be China, that would be Russia, but it’s not the United States. And to keep it that way, you have to defend as vigorously people who you believe are guilty as people who you believe are innocent.” Mr. Dershowitz extends his fervor for equal application of the law to rights protected by the First Amendment. He argues that whatever standard a university applies for allowing Klu Klux Klan members to speak on campus must be “identical” to how it treats the activities of those who support Hamas.“The First Amendment is content neutral. There is no difference under the First Amendment between Martin Luther King and the Ku Klux Klan.”

Legal Scholar Alan Dershowitz, in Parley With the Sun, Calls Prosecution of Trump ‘Nuttiest Thing in the World’

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