While the American left has gone all-in on its judicial harassment of Donald Trump, one old school liberal, by name of Alan Dershowitz has consistently defended the constitution.
He has not worried that this has placed him on Trump’ side, as happened during the first impeachment trial; because Dershowitz believes that the rule of law becomes meaningless if it is applied differently to members of different political parties.
One notes that precious few Republican office holders have denounced the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani’s home, but Dershowitz has. And he has told Giuliani that he will happily join the defense team.
The Daily Mail has the story. First, the event:
Agents seized more than 10 phones and computers from Giuliani's Upper East Side apartment and office, with warrants suggesting the probe relates to Giuliani's freelance 'corruption' investigations in Ukraine on behalf of Donald Trump.
To which Dershowitz replied that this is standard banana republic tactics, worthy of a despot. It is another aspect of cancel culture and the political indoctrination that has now infested many of America's schools.
It’s not just Trump that is the target. Trump's enemies are willing to suspend constitutional rights in order to attack Trump’s friends:
'In banana republics, in Castro's Cuba, in many parts of the world when a candidate loses for president, they go after the candidate, they go after his lawyers, they go after his friends,' said Dershowitz.
'That's happening in America now. They're going after Rudy Giuliani,' he said. ' An they're going after him in inappropriate ways. A search warrant on a lawyer?'
In part, it’s about judicial decorum, principle that the Biden Justice Department and the Biden FBI has suspended:
‘A search warrant on a lawyer or a doctor or a priest? You don't use search warrants,' he said, arguing that Giuliani likely had information on the seized devices protected by attorney-client privilege.
'You don't use search warrants when people have privileged information on their cell phones and in their computers. You use a subpoena. The difference between a subpoena and a search warrant is like night and day,' he said.
The process defies the American constitution:
'They're taking everything from his cloud, from his computers, including privileged information. It's just not constitutional,' said Dershowitz.
Dershowitz said that Giuliani had called him on Saturday and asked for him to aid in his defense. 'I said sure I'll help out, I'm in favor of the Constitution,' Dershowitz said.
It’s far too rare that you hear anyone defend the Constitution these days, so it’s worth a post.
Dershowitz is a mensch.
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