Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump on Fox News, claiming Friday it’s the “weakest” case he’s seen in 60 years.
Dershowitz appeared on “Hannity” to discuss Trump’s upcoming trial in New York. Bragg is accusing Trump of falsifying business records to allegedly pay porn star Stormy Daniels in hush money. Fox News host Sean Hannity prompted the former law professor to analyze the case from a “legal standpoint” due to Bragg’s attempt to increase the charges against Trump. (RELATED: Analysis Shows Just How Rare Manhattan DA’s Charges Against Trump Really Are)
“I’ve been doing this for 60 years, Sean. Teaching criminal cases, defending criminal cases, writing about criminal cases — this is, by far, the weakest criminal case I have ever seen in my 60 years. There is nothing here. There is no misdemeanor, there is no felony, there is no federal crime. The feds refused to prosecute — even Bragg refused to prosecute until some of his young progressive woke prosecutors demanded that he prosecute,” Dershowitz stated.
“Forget about the fact that they’re doing it to try to prevent somebody from running and succeeding in running for president — forget about that. If this were using any individual, this combination of trying to elevate it to a felony by claiming that the only reason that he paid the nondisclosure funds was to prevent voters from learning about it. Obviously, he did it because he didn’t want to embarrass his family, he didn’t want to embarrass his wife. And the idea that you can prosecute somebody — they could have gone after Alexander Hamilton on this theory.”
The former law professor continued to state that the prosecution of someone failing to “disclose a hush money payment” on a business form has never been to court “in the history” of the U.S. Dershowitz warned about the dangers American face if there is no “objective standard of justice” equally applied to all.
“I have a challenge: name any case in the history of America where anybody was ever prosecuted for failing to disclose a hush money payment on some kind of business form. It’s never happened in the history of this country. And to use an unprecedented jerry-rigged case against the man running against your president, your Democrats, is such an abuse of the legal system, we ought to change our motto from ‘E pluribus unum’ to ‘double standard hypocrisy,'” Dershowitz continued.
“That’s what we’re seeing here. We’re seeing the same things in terms of legal bills that were paid, obviously, by the DNC. The Democrats went crazy when they heard that some of the legal fees paid to Trump’s lawyers came from campaign contributions but, you know, what’s good for the goose just isn’t good for the gander when it comes to politics in America today. And we’re all the losers for that. Every American is in danger if we don’t have an objective standard of justice that’s equally applicable to all.”
In April 2023, Trump was indicted by Bragg on 34 counts. While the charges brought against the former president for falsifying business records are typically considered a misdemeanour, Bragg hit Trump with felony charges. The Manhattan DA claimed Trump used the hush money payment to Daniels to hide another crime; however, Bragg has yet to bring charges for the other alleged crime forward, according to the New York Times.
The trial is scheduled to begin April 15, 2024.