Longtime Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz dropped a bombshell in an interview conducted on Wednesday to discuss the expanding cases brought against former president Donald Trump by special counsel Jack Smith.
The interview on Fox Business Network aired one day after Smith charged Trump with four felonies in connection with the incident at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
Late on Tuesday, Trump was charged with three counts of conspiring to obstruct justice, as well as one count each of making fraudulent statements and intentionally withholding national security secrets. According to the Daily Mail, the utmost sentence for these offenses is 55 years in prison, which would amount to a life sentence for the 76-year-old former president. Smith has previously accused Trump of possessing forty counts of classified documents, which he claimed to have declassified prior to leaving office.
Dershowitz stated in his interview that Smith himself could be indicted if Trump prevails in his case.
“You know the worst thing about this indictment, under the terms of this indictment, Jack Smith can be indicted. Let me explain to you why,” Dershowitz said. “The statute says the following, two or more persons conspire to injure and deny somebody the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured him by the constitution.
“What if a court ultimately rules that Donald Trump had a right under the First Amendment to make his Jan. 6 speech and to do what he did? Then Jack Smith will have conspired to deny him of that right. That’s how serious this is,” Dershowitz said.
“Jack Smith … deliberately, willfully and maliciously leaves out the words that President Trump spoke on Jan. 6 in his terrible speech, which I disagree with, but what he said was, ‘I want you to assemble peacefully and patriotically,’” Dershowitz noted further (see below).
“Jack [Smith] leaves that out. That is a lie, a lie, an omission lie, and if you’re going to indict somebody for telling lies, don’t tell lies in the indictment,” Dershowitz continued. “If you’re going to indict somebody for denying people their constitutional rights, don’t deny them their constitutional rights by indicting them for free speech. That’s how hypocritical this is.”
‘That’s How Serious This Is’: Alan Dershowitz Says Jack Smith May Be Indicted If Trump Wins Case | The Daily Caller@ https://t.co/Jrfd6pWkTX
— TheLeoTerrell (@TheLeoTerrell) August 3, 2023
“The Supreme Court has said in an opinion by Chief Justice [William] Rehnquist … under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false opinion or a false idea. The response to a false idea is the marketplace of ideas or Election Day,” Dershowitz explained further.
“So you’re absolutely right, this is a very, very dangerous indictment, dangerous to the First Amendment and also dangerous to the Sixth Amendment because it directly goes after Trump’s lawyers, names them as unindicted coconspirators without giving their names, but basically says they’re criminals for giving him advice on how to challenge the election,” he said.
In addition to Smith’s charges, the UK’s Daily Mail reported that “Trump is already facing 40 federal charges in Florida related to his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office, and he is scheduled to stand trial in New York next year on charges of falsifying business documents after paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.”
More on this story via The Republic Brief:
Regarding the case from January 6, it was sent to Obama appointee and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has been referred to as “the toughest punisher” of the rioters who have been before her court. CONTINUE READING…
