‘Uncanceled’ and Unbowed, Alan Dershowitz Decries ‘New McCarthyism’ in Conversation With Sun’s Publisher

The legendary lawyer sounds off on Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

Derlis Chaverria for The New York Sun
Efune and A.R. Hoffman, at Lincoln Center at New York City, April 20, 2023. Derlis Chaverria for The New York Sun

A full house at Lincoln Center was on hand for “Alan Dershowitz: Uncanceled,” a lively conversation for the Sun’s Founder members that ranged from the famed law professor’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein to his representation of President Trump to his scorn for the case brought against the former president by District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Mr. Dershowitz, in conversation with the Sun’s publisher, Dovid Efune, and this correspondent, opined that “in America you express your views on people not by indicting them, but by voting against them,” setting himself against Mr. Bragg’s effort to “stop me from doing that” by charging the former president.

Mr. Dershowitz added that in 60 years of lawyering he has “never seen a weaker indictment” than the one that was handed up from Mr. Bragg’s office over the relationship between Mr. Trump and the porn actress Stormy Daniels. People, he observes, have been paying hush money in America “since Alexander Hamilton.”

The longtime professor at Harvard Law School decried the “new McCarthyism” coming from the “progressive left” and mused that he would not be welcome to teach at the Cambridge-based school now, slings and arrows he shrugs off by virtue of his “thick skin” that comes from defending “some of the worst people to ever walk the earth.” 

​Mr. Dershowitz spoke bluntly of his association with Epstein, whom he represented and whom he thinks killed himself in jail. He told the audience that “I think he paid money or had somebody pay money to guards to turn off the video and get rid of the cellmate.” 

Mr. Dershowitz hammered the accusations launched against him by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, that were subsequently withdrawn after she allowed that she “may have made a mistake” in identifying him because they would be “the best proof of my complete innocence.” 

Of State Secretary Clinton, Mr. Dershowitz noted that “she was so arrogant and so convinced” of her chances of victory in 2016 that she ignored his offer to campaign for her in South Florida. The man who beat her, Mr. Trump, recruited Mr. Dershowitz to represent him in his first impeachment trial

Mr. Dershowitz detailed the deal he made with Mr. Trump before he undertook the president’s defense in the Senate. Mr. Trump undertook to not see the text of the speech before Mr. Dershowitz delivered it, and neither would anyone on his legal team. “You have to trust me​​,” he told the president. Mr. Trump was acquitted. 

Mr. Dershowitz related how the morning after that oration — “everyone but academics praised it” —  Mr. Trump called him to thank him for advocating on his behalf. Before hanging up, the baron of Mar-a-Lago added that he hoped the prolific author and attorney would thank him “for making you famous.”


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