“Trump’s trial is a stupendous legal catastrophe”, writes Alan Dershowitz in the Telegraph.
I have been teaching, practising and writing about criminal law for 60 years. In all those years, I have never seen or heard of a case in which the defendant has been criminally prosecuted for failing to disclose the payment of what prosecutors call “hush money”. Alexander Hamilton paid hush money to cover up an affair with a married woman. Many others have paid hush money since. If the legislature wanted to criminalise such conduct they could easily enact the statute prohibiting the payment of hush money or requiring its disclosure. They have declined to do so.
Prosecutors cannot simply make up new crimes by jerry-rigging a concoction of existing crimes, some of which are barred by the statute of limitations others of which are beyond the jurisdiction of state prosecutors.
and
If the defendant were not Donald Trump and the venue were not Manhattan, this ought to be a slam dunk win for the defendant. Indeed, this extraordinarily weak case would never have been bought.
I am not a Trump political supporter. I voted for Joe Biden in the last election and I have an open mind about the coming election. But I want it to be fair. Whoever loses the election should not be able to complain about election interference by the weaponisation of the criminal justice system for partisan advantage.
All Americans, regardless of political affiliation, should be appalled at this selective prosecution.
I am curious as to whether Professor Dershowitz’s article will be appearing in any of the American papers as well as in the Telegraph. It is very common for British papers to reprint articles about American affairs, but a quick Google showed no sign of this one other than in the Telegraph itself. One would think an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School would have American newspapers queuing up to publish his views on one of the top U.S. legal stories of the day. Maybe the layers of editors and fact-checkers for which the American media are famed are just taking their time on this one.
What he says about the political nature of Trump’s indictments is largely correct, but Alan Dershowitz has his own problems in this area, so crying plaintively for Trump is a bit of projection. No doubt worried that his own legal problems might rise from the ashes.
I supported Ted Cruz in 2016 – but he would have been treated the same way by the institutionally corrupt system. They would never have allowed someone who supported a 10% top rate of income tax to be President – remember Donald John Trump was the MODERATE in 2016,which is people who really are “extreme”, such as me, supported Ted Cruz.
In a corrupt legal system it is easy to bring charges against anyone – as Tacitus put it two thousand years ago “the more laws there are – the more corrupt the state is” (have a look at how long the Federal statute book is).
John Galt – be careful of leftist propaganda.
One person in Palm Beach was banned from the club of Donald Trump – and the name of that person was Jeffrey Epstein.
Whoever had Mr Epstein murdered (which that establishmentarian, Bob Barr, covered up) it was NOT President Trump – of President Trump has been having sex with underage girls on the island, it would have been all over the media years ago.
As for Alan Dershowitz – he was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Like Jeffrey Epstein Mr Dershowitz is a life long Democrat.
In spite of all his terrible faults – Napoleon did two great things, he restored gold-money (proper coinage) and he established a legal code that ordinary people could understand.
This replaced the Credit Money and arbitrary “Justice” (read murder) of the 1790s.
Bills of Attainder are just fine when they’re used against Trump. Didn’t you get the memo?
“One would think an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School would have American newspapers queuing up to publish his views on one of the top U.S. legal stories of the day.”
This story is (D)ifferent.
Americans need to be asking why their political establishment is so afraid of Trump.
I don’t think they’re afraid of him so much as they don’t want other political outsiders thinking they have the right to show up too. So they destroy him and make an abject lesson of him in the process.
“It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”
-George Carlin
Steven:
Hmmm… There is that, but you also have to ask yourself:
Who else has the big bucks and the Big Ego needed to take on the American Establishment?
Elon Musk, for sure, but he is not eligible for POTUS.