The GOP's Attempts to Spin and Deny on Impeachment Have Hit Pathetic New Lows

Last edited Thu Jan 30, 2020, 09:49 AM - Edit history (1)

January 29, 2020 12:39PM ET
The GOP’s Attempts to Spin and Deny on Impeachment Have Hit Pathetic New Lows
You can smell the desperation
By Andy Kroll

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Alan Dershowitz, the legal scholar and cable-news talking head who once defended Jeffrey Epstein, pushed perhaps the most expansive view imaginable of executive power during an appearance at the impeachment trial on Wednesday.

According to Dershowitz, President Trump did nothing wrong by freezing military aid for Ukraine until it announced investigations into the Bidens because a president can do basically whatever he wants to get reelected if he deems those actions in the “public interest.” As Dershowitz put it, “If the president does something that he thinks will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

So even if Trump did withhold Ukraine’s money specifically until he got the Biden announcement, that’s his right and not an abuse of power, Dershowitz said. Under this logic, Richard Nixon could have argued that the Watergate break-in and ensuing cover-up were in the “public interest” because they would help him get reelected. A president could in theory arrest his opponents if he insisted that doing so was in the “public interest” because it would help his reelection. Taken to its extreme, Dershowitz’s argument would permit any number of corrupt, immoral, or abusive acts to help a sitting president win another four years simply because the president deems those acts in the “public interest.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead House member arguing in favor of convicting and removing Trump, summed up the insanity of Dershowitz’s argument. “If you say you can’t hold a president accountable in an election year where they’re trying to cheat in that election, then you are giving them carte blanche,” Schiff said.

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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-impeachment-trial-senate-republican-bolton-ukraine-hannity-fox-944868/