Trump’s Own Lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, Warned that a He Would Embolden Fascist Elements

President Trump’s impeachment lawyer Alan Dershowitz knows Trump is corrupt, and in 2016 said that Trump would continue to be corrupt were he to win the election. He also warned that Trump would “embolden and strengthen some of the fascist elements in our society.”

“I think she and the Clintons generally could have done a better job of preserving the appearance of propriety. And appearances are very, very important. But when you compare that to what Trump has done with Trump University – with so many other things, I think there’s no comparison between who has engaged in more corruption and who is more likely to continue that, if elected President of the United States.”

Dershowitz knows the dangers Trump presents. He said then that he worried Trump would “embolden and strengthen some of the fascist elements in our society”:

“There is a kind of fascist mentality in the world today. I don’t worry that Donald Trump will try to govern that way. I do worry that he will embolden and strengthen some of the fascist elements in our society.”

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Here’s the audio from an October 2016 Trending Today USA radio interview shared by Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, who flagged it for CNN:

Students who said they were duped by Trump won a $25 million settlement in 2018 against Trump University. NBC News reported at the time, “Students had alleged that Trump University, which was open from 2005 to 2010, used false advertising and high-pressure sales techniques to lure them to free investor workshops at which they were sold expensive seminars and told they would be mentored by real estate gurus, leading to the loss of thousands of dollars in tuition.

A “one-year apprenticeship” at the educational institute cost $1,495; a “membership” over $10,000; and “Gold Elite” classes ran $35,000.”

Dershowitz has a habit of defending the worst of humanity. Over a decade ago he got Jeffrey Epstein that sweetheart deal in Palm Beach County, Florida that allowed him to continue sexually abusing and exploiting minors. He has also defended Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson, and Mike Tyson.

Dershowitz responded to CNN’s request for comment writing, “I was campaigning for Clinton. That’s what I believed at the time based on media reports. I didn’t know Trump. I knew Clinton.”

This is the same man who claimed later that he didn’t know Jeffrey Epstein except as a friend who had an office at Harvard. In an interview with NPR’s Noel King, he said:

King: As I understand it, you’ve been an overnight guest at his homes. You flew with him on his private jet a number of times. You borrowed his Palm Beach house for a family vacation. That doesn’t sound like an academic relationship.

Dershowitz: …I never had a kind of social relationship where we had dinner together or we had discussions about our personal lives. Our relationship was predominantly academic.

The New Yorker pointed out that sometimes Dershowitz himself has been painted with the same brush as his clients, “In 2014, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, stated in a court filing that Epstein lent her out for sex to his friends—Dershowitz among them.”

Criminal defense lawyers don’t always like their clients. Dershowitz told New Yorker writer Connie Bruck, “Every honest criminal lawyer will tell you that he defends the guilty and the innocent.”

But it is not every criminal lawyer who would argue against his or her own country and the rule of law itself. And perhaps that is why Trump ended up with Dershowitz in the first place. After all, his lawyers are failing at their impossible task.

Respected constitutional expert Lawrence Tribe pointed out that Dershowitz’ argument was wrong, “.@AlanDersh said “even if a President commands the power of state to corrupt a future election, by seeking the intervention of a foreign power … that’s not something that impeachment would be appropriate for.” WRONG! That’s why we have impeachment!”

Dershowitz knew how corrupt Trump is and knew that Trump would push us toward “fascist elements,” which is just another way of saying that Alan Dershowitz is not stupid. Today he finds himself defending a corrupt president against evidence that is indisputable, and so he is arguing that we shouldn’t impeach Trump even if he were to command a foreign power to corrupt an election for him, which is what he did. Again.

Yes, people. We should use that corrupt election that Trump is going to rig. That is our remedy, according to Dershowitz.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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