CNN has a nice overview. Here is a taste:
Republicans have variously argued that Trump did nothing wrong, the Democrats made up impeachment charges or that there was no quid pro quo in Ukraine. But they have apparently been pushed to this final, fallback position in the light of Bolton’s claim in a manuscript for his new book first reported by The New York Times that Trump did indeed tell him to withhold aid to Kiev until it opened probes into his domestic foes.
The legal reasoning from Dershowitz — while outside the mainstream — is giving Republican senators political cover to stand with the President.
The Harvard emeritus professor claimed on the Senate floor that if a politician thinks his reelection is in the national interest, any actions he takes towards that end cannot by definition be impeachable.
“And if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz argued.
Lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff however argued that such a position suggested an interpretation of the Constitution that held it acceptable for a President to abuse his power and Congress could do nothing about it.
“You can’t do anything about it because if he views it as in his personal interest, that’s just fine. He’s allowed to do it. None of the founders would have accepted that kind of reasoning,” Schiff said, adding later, “In fact, the idea that the core offense that the founders protected against, that core offense is abuse of power, is beyond the reach of Congress through impeachment would have terrified the founders.”
CNN legal expert Carrie Cordero said that Dershowitz’s arguments — that CNN reporters in the chamber said were warmly received by Republican senators — were nonsensical.
“It basically means that a President can do anything and they can make a subjective determination that their reelection is in the national interest,” Cordero said.
“It invites and opens the door to anything that is in the realm of foreign influence.”
Dershowitz reacted angrily later on in the question-and-answer session to suggestions by the House impeachment managers that he was in a slim minority of legal thought, claiming that constitutional experts who did not agree with him treated Republican and Democratic presidents by different legal standards.
“These scholars are influenced by their own bias, by their own politics and their views should be taken with that in mind. They simply do not give objective assessments of the constitutional history,” Dershowitz said.
The spectacle of Republicans adopting such arguments is remarkable since the party that once saw itself as the epitome of limited government is coalescing in an effort to broaden the unrestrainable power of the presidency. But it is also thematically compatible with the idea of a “unitary executive” — a theory that grants expansive powers to the presidency and is advanced by some conservative lawyers — including current Attorney General William Barr. In his own way, Trump has argued similar points, claiming that Article II of the Constitution gives him the power to do anything he wants.
Read the entire piece here.
I was struck by Dershowitz’s statement that all other Constitutional scholars are “influenced by their own bias, by their own politics and their views should be taken with that in mind. They simply do not give objective assessments of constitutional history.”
Such a statement implies that Dershowitz is the only true, objective constitutional scholar in the world. Everyone else is biased. Only he is right. This is like Trump saying “I alone can fix it.”
Dershowitz’s absurd argument is an appeal to the Trump base. Dershowitz is telling Trump supporters that there is a deep state of elite liberal law professors who are out to get them and their president. I have not had a chance to watch Fox News today, but I am imagine they are running with this argument.
