https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/alan-dershowitz-labeled-trump-destabilizing-unpredictable-2016-book-n1122746

Jan. 26, 2020, 5:00 AM EST

By Heidi Przybyla

WASHINGTON — As part of President Donald Trump's impeachment defense team, Alan Dershowitz is expected to argue on behalf of the president at the Senate trial early next week. But in a 2016 book he authored, the famed defense attorney called Trump a “destabilizing and unpredictable candidate,” warning that the then-presidential candidate “openly embraces fringe conspiracy theories peddled by extremists.”

Dershowitz wrote those statements in his book titled “Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for Unaroused Voters.” As part of Trump’s defense team, Dershowitz will outline the “foundations of what it means to rise to the level of what is impeachable and what is not,” Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s lead impeachment lawyers, said this week on Fox News.

In a phone call with NBC about his comments in the 2016 book, Dershowitz clarified his views about the president. “I was campaigning for Hillary Clinton at the time. I hadn’t really ever met President Trump and it was just typical campaign rhetoric," he said. "I would not repeat that characterization today having met him.”

The controversial defense attorney has recently come under criticism for advancing a constitutional theory that contradicts the stance he took during the 1999 impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton, an argument that 500 of the nation’s top constitutional scholars dispute.

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