Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Thursday he's worried that former President Donald Trump's expected federal indictment is setting a bad precedent.
The Justice Department is expected to indict Trump for allegedly violating the Espionage Act with his handling of classified documents and for obstruction of justice.
Dershowitz said on "John Bachman Now" that he worries if the United States "becomes Turkey, or it becomes Iran, or it becomes a country where a suspicion is equivalent to conviction of guilt on one side of the political spectrum, rather than the other. But the key is, you have to have one system and one standard of law enforcement."
He continued: "If there is a certain level of evidence of serious crime against anybody on either side — whether it's the sitting president, the son of the sitting president, the former president, the same rule has to be applicable to all of them. The Justice Department cannot be allowed to use its enormous power of the criminal justice system to influence political elections."
When asked about Trump's response to the potential indictment, Dershowitz said, "He's not acting like most criminal defendants ... most of them stay quiet. And that's why he's gotten in trouble."
However, he added, Trump is "exercising his constitutional rights, not only under the First Amendment, but under the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment. He didn't just simply roll over when prosecutors said, We think you're in trouble over possession of classified material. He fought back. And you're allowed to do that."
Dershowitz continued: "You're not allowed to cross lines into criminal obstruction of justice. But those are very hard lines to get evidence on.
"You have to prove corrupt motive. You have to prove that he went beyond just doing what any defendant is entitled to do, fighting back against what he believes is the government campaign to get him."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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