‘The Most Dangerous Threat To Democracy’: Alan Dershowitz Rips Georgia’s Trump Indictment

‘The Most Dangerous Threat To Democracy’: Alan Dershowitz Rips Georgia’s Trump Indictment

Jake Smith on August 15, 2023

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said that four of the charges being brought against former President Donald Trump in the Georgia grand jury indictment are designed to bring “quick, quick” convictions to keep Trump from running in the 2024 presidential election, setting a legal precedent that would create “the most dangerous threat to democracy,” during an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Monday night.

Dershowitz said four of the charges brought against Trump – including charges for violating Georgia’s “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations” (RICO) Act and multiple conspiracy charges – were among the “weakest cases” he’s ever seen brought against a presidential candidate, during an interview with Hannity on Monday. Dershowitz speculated that these charges were designed to get a “quick, quick” conviction, even though the conviction could be overturned on appeal at a later date.

“The whole strategy of all these four cases is to get a conviction before the election, even if they’re going to lose on appeal,” said Dershowitz. “I used to teach my students – many of them future prosecutors – if you bring a RICO case, that increases your chances of winning a trial and losing on appeal. The same thing is true with conspiracy and other cases involving mental states. And so all four of these cases are designed to get quick, quick convictions in jurisdictions that are heavily loaded against Donald Trump.

“And these prosecutors don’t care as much as prosecutors generally do about having the convictions reversed on appeal, because that will happen after the election,” Dershowitz said. “These are among the four – a least three of them – three weakest cases I’ve ever seen against any candidate.”

Dershowitz noted that the unsound indictment is an abuse of the Constitution “for partisan political purposes” and could create a dangerous precedent in which “anybody could prosecute anybody.”

“If you are going after the man running for president against [Biden], you have to have the strongest case. Otherwise, it becomes a banana republic,” Dershowitz said. “Anybody can prosecute anybody, and we’re opening the door to prosecution of Democrats by Republicans, Republicans by Democrats. It’s what Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist – it’s the most dangerous threat to democracy. And we’re seeing it unfold in front of our eyes, very, very tragically.

“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Trump supporter, but I care deeply about the Constitution. I care deeply about preserving the rule of law, and we’re seeing it being frittered away for partisan political purposes,” said Dershowitz.