The federal indictment against former President Donald Trump fails a crucial test, law professor Alan Dershowitz says.
“It doesn’t meet what I call the Richard Nixon standard, which was very clear obstruction of justice, destroying evidence, paying bribes,” Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said on Newsmax on June 9 after the indictment was unsealed.
“This is too close a case to bring against the man running for president, against the incumbent president,” Dershowitz added.
Two paragraphs in the indictment do appear to meet the standard of the planned prosecution of former President Nixon, according to the law professor.
‘Highly Confidential’ Plan
Those paragraphs refer to Trump allegedly showing an unidentified writer, publisher, and staff members a “highly confidential” plan to attack a country.
U.S. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was quoted in a news story on July 15, 2021, as fighting to stop Trump from ordering an attack on Iran.
Six days later, Trump showed the writer and publisher what he described as a “plan of attack” from the same general.
“Isn’t this amazing? This totally wins my case, except it is like, highly confidential,” Trump is quoted as saying in the indictment.
“As president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t but this is still a secret,” he was also quoted as saying.
The indictment charges Trump with various crimes, including illegally disclosing national defense information.
‘Will Have to Be Explained’
“We’re going to have to hear an exception from Trump’s lawyers or from Trump as to how we can justify having shown to somebody who doesn’t have security clearance allegedly some information about a plan to attack Iran,” Dershowitz said on Newsmax.
None of the people shown the document held a security clearance, U.S. authorities say.
Trump “may claim he didn’t show it to them, just kind of waved it in front of them as part of bragging but that’s something that will have to be explained,” Dershowitz said. “When you have a tape in the voice of the defendant himself it’s hard to dispute, so I think this is a serious indictment on these two charges. Everything else I think was exactly what we expected,” he also said.
