Thursday on Fox New Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz accused congressional Republicans who filed articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of being “shortsighted” and “stupid.”
Dershowitz said, “It is the most shortsighted, and I have to say stupid thing I have heard in a long time. Here we have a present to the Democrats are trying to impeach. If they gained the House of Representatives, they will almost certainly do so. And the big issue will be can you impeach a president or anyone else when you don’t charge him with specific crimes, just because you disagree with what he has done. And now, you have the Republicans making the case for the Democrats who want to impeach the president by offering bills of impeachment against Rod Rosenstein that don’t charge crimes. I’m going to have to write a new book called “The Case Against Impeaching Rod Rosenstein.” The same arguments apply. This is so shortsighted.”
He continued, “The big victim is the American public. Impeachment is supposed to be there for serious crimes: treason, bribery, other high crimes and misdemeanors. If you don’t like the way Rod Rosenstein is responding to your subpoena, charge him with contempt of court, bring him to court, but do not use impeachment. That just helps the Democrats who are trying to impeach President Trump. It’s a dumb, dumb decision.”
He added, “We have to stop weaponizing impeachment, stop weaponizing the criminal law. If you don’t like what somebody does, vote against them, bring them to court, but do not use impeachment, do not use the criminal law to target your political enemies. It is a serious mistake, and it will backfire.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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