Neither women nor men should receive preferential presumptions regarding accusations of sexual assault or abuse, said Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, contrasting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) differing responses to such allegations made against Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former Vice President Joe Biden. He joined SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak.
Pollak recalled Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) position on Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh during the latter’s confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court.
“Chuck Schumer said that we couldn’t have a vote on Kavanaugh until all of these accusations had been aired,” Pollak stated. “It had to be delayed. Nancy Pelosi [said the] same thing. … The same people who wanted Kavanaugh investigated forever — [to] never have a vote on his confirmation — are now saying that the case is closed [regarding Joe Biden].”
On May 5, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accepted an MSNBC anchor’s characterization of Tara Reade’s accusations against Biden as a “closed issue.”
“I am proud to support Joe Biden for president,” she declared. “I believe him when he says it didn’t happen.”
On May 12, Schumer framed Biden’s denial of Reade’s allegations against him as “sufficient.” Pollak recalled Schumer’s different reaction to allegations made against Kavanaugh.
Dershowitz quipped, “You’ve discovered something new that nobody ever knew before: Chuck Schumer is a hypocrite. There’s no doubt about that.”
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“It depends on whose ox is being gored,” added Dershowitz, observing how partisanship shapes many people’s views of allegations of sexual assault. “If Bill Clinton is accused, many of the same women who had become supporters of the Me Too movement say, ‘Oh, no, no, no, not Bill Clinton. He’s a good guy. He’s a liberal. He puts good people on the Supreme Court. We’re not going to look into that. We’re going to trash the accusers.’ If it’s Kavanaugh, the exact same women are taking the exact opposite point of view. On Biden, if you want to know which side people are going to come out on, just look at the politics of it. It’s just totally hypocritical.”
Dershowitz recalled how Schumer mischaracterized arguments he presented in defense of President Donald Trump during the president’s impeachment trial in the Senate.
“Schumer directly lied about me,” said Dershowitz. “He heard me on the floor of the Senate saying that a president could be impeached if he did anything illegal, and then he goes on the floor of the Senate and says, ‘Dershowitz said a president could do anything to get elected.’ He knew he was lying through his teeth. Many of the other Democrats knew they were lying. The media and CNN were lying, but they could get away with it because people don’t like Trump and don’t like lawyers who defend Trump.”
Dershowitz added, “Hypocrisy abounds here.”
Dershowitz rejected the “Believe Women” mantra of the Me Too political campaign. He lamented what he viewed as an erosion of popular support for the presumption of innocence as a jurisprudential value.
“There’s no presumption in favor of a woman or in favor of a man,” stated Dershowitz, drawing on his latest book, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo. “Let’s see what the evidence shows.”
Breitbart News Sunday broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.
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