Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax Wednesday that the photo of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago that the Department of Justice attached to a 36-page motion it filed late Tuesday night shows it is selectively editing what it releases to the public.
"It proves one thing: that they're cherry-picking what they release," Dershowitz said during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "This is classified material, and they're putting it out and giving it to our enemies because they want to — because they can. On the other hand, they redact other material."
"They know that The New York Times and CNN are going to show the picture without comment," the retired law professor continued. "Thank God for you, Greta. You at least have the willingness to say it may have been staged, maybe the Justice Department lawyers put it out there to be photographed."
FBI agents raided former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago Aug. 8 searching for boxes of classified documents he allegedly took with him when he left office. The 45th president has claimed that he declassified the materials the FBI recovered while he was still in Washington.
Discussing the legal filing photo, Dershowitz said, "You have to look at everything the government and the Justice Department does critically.
"The government uses classification and sealing to serve its own ends," he said. "They redact selectively. That's been my experience for 55 years. Nothing has changed.
"Do not trust the government to guard itself," he continued. "'Who will guard the guardians?' is an old Roman statement, and it's just as true of the Justice Department today as it was in ancient Rome."
Dershowitz also said that he doesn’t think the DOJ has enough evidence to prosecute Trump.
"I think the only basis of prosecution here is what's called a process crime," he said. "If they can prove that he obstructed justice willfully and deliberately — and it has to be him, not his lawyers — by destroying documents the way Richard Nixon did or instructed somebody to destroy documents or deliberately moved them from one area to another with the specific intent, then that could be enough to justify obstruction of justice, which would be a ground that possibly could be brought.
"There has to be evidence, when you have a future presidential candidate, that there was a deliberate effort to destroy. And I don't think it's there, based on what I saw," he added.
Though widely expected to run for president again in 2024, Trump has not yet announced a potential run in 2024.
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