“They are prepared to tear up the Constitution in an effort to remove him by any and all means,” said Attorney Alan Dershowitz.
By Josh Plank, World Israel News
Attorney and Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz condemned recent efforts to remove President Donald Trump by “overzealous advocates” that wish to “weaponize” the Constitution for political gain.
“They are prepared to tear up the Constitution in an effort to remove him by any and all means,” wrote Dershowitz in a Gatestone Institute report on Monday.
“They are prepared to ignore the First Amendment, distort the 25th Amendment, stretch the criteria for impeachment, and permit House impeachment without a Senate trial,” he said.
Dershowitz said the efforts to remove Trump, if successful, would do more damage to the rule of law than did the protestors who entered the Capitol Building on Jan. 6.
“What they want to do is to impeach President Trump without giving him an opportunity to defend himself at a Senate trial,” said Dershowitz, pointing to the fact that a trial could not realistically be expected to begin before Trump leaves office on Jan. 20.
“This would be analogous to a prosecutor deciding to indict someone and then deny him a trial at which he could disprove his guilt or prove his innocence. That would be a core denial of due process, as would impeaching a president based on a majority of the House while denying him a trial in the Senate that requires a two-thirds super majority to remove,” he said.
Dershowitz also said that impeachment, according to the Constitution, is a process that clearly applies only to sitting officeholders, not to private citizens who may have once held office.
He cited Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, which reads, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
On Sunday, Dershowitz told Fox News, “To impeach a president for having exercised his First Amendment rights would be so dangerous to the Constitution. It would lie around like a loaded weapon, ready to be used by either party against the other party, and that’s not what impeachment or the 25th Amendment were intended to be.”
Dershowitz said his goal is to “protect the Constitution from overzealous advocates that want to weaponize it in the interests of temporary political gain.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said the House will proceed with legislation to impeach Trump as she pushes Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to force him out.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) announced last week that she was beginning to draft Articles of Impeachment.