Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz criticized the guilty verdict in New York’s case against former President Trump during a recent interview with British journalist Piers Morgan.
The legal scholar, who was part of Trump’s impeachment defense team in 2019, condemned the former president’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records last Thursday, calling it one of the worst rulings he’s seen.
“From one to 10, it was a below 20,” Dershowitz said after the “Piers Morgan Uncensored” host asked him how “sound” the verdict was. “It’s the worst legal verdict I’ve seen in 60 years of practicing, writing, litigating [inaudible] cases.”
Dershowitz said he was unclear what exactly the crimes Trump was convicted of were.
“I still don’t know what he was convicted of,” he said. “Was he convicted of intent to cheat on his taxes two years later, although he didn’t take it as a deduction? Was he convicted of defrauding voters, who obviously knew that he was a sexual scoundrel?”
“Was he convicted of seeking to make an illegal campaign contribution, although the contribution didn’t have to be listed until after the election?” Dershowitz asked.
“I have never seen a case where, even after the verdict came down, we don’t know what he was convicted of,” Dershowitz continued. “No one in history — in history — has ever been convicted of failing to disclose hush money payments paid to somebody.”
“Why would anybody pay hush money if they had to disclose it?” he asked. “This is a case where the prosecutor simply decided to get Trump.”
TRUMP RAILS AGAINST ‘RIGGED’ CONVICTION AS CAMPAIGN RAKES IN DONATIONS AFTER GUILTY VERDICT
Other legal pundits have made similar points in recent days.
“Prosecutors got their man, for now at least — but they also contorted the law in an unprecedented manner in their quest to snare their prey,” CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig wrote in a New York Magazine column. He called the case “an ill-conceived, unjustified mess.”
During a recent appearance on Fox News Channel, legal scholar and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley called the trial and conviction “an abuse” of the justice system.
“I think that people who are fair-minded would say this was a basically popular justice of Manhattan, but it wasn’t the justice we look forward to in our legal system,” Turley said.
Dershowitz said he doesn’t have a pro-Trump bias that would affect his view of the verdict.
“I am not a Trump supporter. I voted against him,” he said. “I’m a liberal Democrat, but I care more about the weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
