Dershowitz Says That The Supreme Court Could Overturn A Trump Impeachment
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Alan Dershowitz in a new book says that in the event President Trump is ever impeached, the Supreme Court could intervene and overturn the vote to remove him from office.
Dershowitz pens in “The Case Against Impeaching Trump” that if evidence of collusion with the Russian government arose that incriminated Trump, it would not be a criminal offense.
“It's not a crime to collude with a foreign government. Maybe it should be, but it's not,” Dershowitz told the Washington Examiner prior to his Tuesday book release.
Dershowitz further explained that though such collusion would be a “political sin,” it does not entirely meet the Constitution’s specification of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” needed for impeachment.
The Harvard law professor says in his book that such a development could prompt judicial review, because “this president (and perhaps others) might well refuse to leave office if Congress voted to impeach and remove him based on ‘offenses’ that were not among those enumerated in the Constitution.”
“A Supreme Court that inserted itself into the Bush v. Gore election in order to avoid a constitutional crisis might well decide to review a House decision to impeach and a Senate decision to remove a president who is not accused and convicted of a specified constitutional crime,” Dershowitz continues.
But Dershowitz, who is an opinion contributor for The Hill, says the chief justice of the Supreme Court could rule on a motion to dismiss such charges.
“The decision by the framers to have the chief justice preside over the trial of a president may suggest that the decision was not intended to be entirely political. Indeed, it would be wrong for the chief justice to participate, much less preside over, an entirely political process. Judges are required to stay out of politics,” Dershowitz writes.
In the book's introduction, Dershowitz, who is a lifelong Democrat who says he is only defending Trump based on legal arguments, further expands on extreme hypotheticals, such as if Trump colluded to let Russia “retake” Alaska, in efforts to demonstrate his perception of what the Constitution’s requirement is for something criminal.
“Assume [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decides to ‘retake’ Alaska, the way he ‘retook’ Crimea. Assume further that a president allows him to do it, because he believed that Russia has a legitimate claim to ‘its’ original territory,” Dershowitz writes. “That would be terrible, but would it be impeachable? Not under the text of the Constitution.”
Dershowitz writes that impeaching Trump would be possible, though, “if he did it because he was paid or extorted.”
Dershowitz, who has often made legal arguments defending the president in the media, argues the special counsel investigation should have never began in the first place because no specific crime could be defined.
He also said the president gives him mixed reviews, adding that one of his most recent calls from Trump was “to correct something I said on television,” according to the Examiner report.
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What the fuck has happened to Alan Dershowitz?
If Trump were impeached and a Trump appointed majority of the SC overturned it, I guess we would be at that point
LOL in your dreams , so far only 2 presidents have been impeached , Andrew Johnson and William Clinton, BOTH were not removed from office because the votes to do so where not in the senate . As for something not being a crime? it wasn't a crime to diddle an intern and get oral sex either...… yeah I jokingly tried to tell the ex wife that oral sex wasn't sex based on what the president had claimed , anyone want to guess how THAT ended up? I shouldn't have even gone there with that with her....
Really don't know what your point is.
GOPERS stuck on sex except when its their sex.
Ahh, Dershowitz took too many rides on that lysergic acid diethylamide train. He is a distractor, running flak and being paid for it.
The real game is this. Senate is about to confirm Brian Benezkowski to the DOJ.
Benezkowski, of Alpha Bank fame and other things, will be in position to replace Rosenstein and shut down all investigations. Trump is covering 'his bases' very well, but he could not do this without a compliant GOP congress. They too are obviously in on this.
Trump is visiting Europe to weaken US ties with allies. He will then visit Putin in Helsinki to strengthen ties with Russia. Sanctions on Europe. Sanctions off of Russia.
My point is John , that the only role the USSC have in an impeachment is that of the Chief justice presiding over the proceedings in the Senate portion of an impeachment , the rest of the SC has absolutely no say.
about the only way I can see the SC having to hear it is if there is an appeal made , but if the charges are valid , and the vote to remove is done legally within the constitution , they would most likely have to either refuse to hear the appeal , and the removal stays in place , or hear it and have to follow constitutional directives. In which case the constitutional procedure and vote would stand and stay enforced.
What the point should be is that colluding with another country regarding an election is not a crime, has never been a crime, and has not yet been made a crime. And, firing the Director of the FBI is not a crime, has never been a crime, and has not yet been made a crime. So, right now, we have what is being called a counter-intelligence operation that looks to be more about creating a crime to get rid of a President than an actual investigation into Russian meddling into our elections. What will happen here is that any sort of impeachment proceeding would be tainted and purely political no matter what "charges" are brought against Trump as there has not been any crime, and the precedent with Bill Clinton is that perjury should not result in a removal from office. So, we have a precedent in what would be the only resulting charge as things currently stand and as such the Supreme Court would be able to step in and state that any impeachment of Trump by Congress for so-called Russian collusion is actually a miscarriage of justice and in fact Unconstitutional.