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‘DEAD WRONG’: Alan Dershowitz Goes Off On Bill Barr

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1 year ago

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Alan Dershowitz, a renowned former law professor and scholar from Harvard University, shot back at former Attorney General Bill Barr’s assertion that free speech was not on trial with Jack Smith’s second indictment of Donald Trump over his contestation of the 2020 election. Barr dismissed the indictment’s implications for free speech and petition when he said, “He [Trump] can say whatever he wants. He can even lie. He can even tell people that the election was stolen, when he knew better.”

“He’s just dead wrong about that,” said Professor Dershowitz. “Of course this is a free speech case.”

Dershowitz elaborated that “Everything [in the indictment] involves his exercise of free speech. Not just his First Amendment free speech but also his First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”  “The leading candidate against the incumbent president should never be prosecuted by the attorney general of the president unless the case against him is overwhelming and beyond any dispute. The Nixon standard is what I call it” averred the former law Harvard professor and free speech advocate.

Dershowitz, who is more open to Jack Smith’s first indictment of Trump as having some legitimate grounds, says that the second indictment certainly fails to meet such an exact standard. “The [second] indictment is based on lies. The indictment itself contains a blatant lie by Jack Smith” declared Dershowitz. Dershowitz continued by noting that much of the lying in the indictment consists of lies of omissions over failure to tell the full story of Trump’s speech on January 6th and that under Smith’s legal theory of rights deprivation, Mr. Smith may be liable for prosecution over his denial of Trump’s rights.

The case is therefore about speech. “We have two presidents in our history, of all our presidents only two, who have been called honest. Honest Abe and Washington and the cherry tree. Does that mean every other president has been dishonest? Probably. Probably every single one of them has told a fib to get elected or to stay in office, and we don’t punish. We don’t criminalize political lies” said Dershowitz.

Former Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) expressed similar thoughts to Dershowitz on X. He tweeted “The latest indictment, which I encourage everyone to read, attempts to criminalize Trump’s routine misstatements of fact and law in connection with the 2020 election. But this is precisely the sort of wrong that must be addressed politically under our Constitution, not criminally.”

He added, “We’re allowed to disagree about the workings of our constitutional system without fear of criminal reprisal. Politicians are constantly misguided and just plain mistaken about a lot of things—often remarkably so. It endangers all Americans to begin treating politicians’ false beliefs regarding political or constitutional matters, even when they’re obviously wrong, as criminal offenses.”

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Stephen Miller, founder of America First Legal, also elaborately wrote about the nature of the indictment. “In proclaiming that President Trump’s assertions and beliefs about illegal/ineligible ballots were incorrect (the entire basis of DOJ’s prosecution), how many mail-in envelopes/ballots do you think Garland’s DOJ personally inspected,” wrote Miller.



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