(USA Features) Noted constitutional expert and Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Saturday former President Donald Trump’s enemies are trying to “use the law in a weaponized way” to attack him politically using lawsuits premised on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“I think what he did was protected as president by executive privilege and by the First Amendment,” Dershowitz said on Newsmax TV’s “Saturday Report.” “This is an attempt to use the law as a weapon.”
Dershowitz said legal actions very often are premised on political retribution, including in New York, where Attorney General Letitia James “ran for office on the campaign promise of getting Trump.”
He went on to say he thinks that more lawsuits will be filed by groups on the left and right because politicized legal actions are getting to be far too common.
“It’s wrong when either party uses it (as a weapon) but it’s being used now, extensively, broadly, and in an overreaching way against the former president of the United States,” said Dershowitz.
“If you don’t like the former president of the United States don’t vote for him if he runs again. Don’t vote for the people he supports. That’s your political right, but bringing lawsuits makes very little sense,” he continued.
While Trump would have little recourse except through countersuits, he could bring what is known as “Rule 11” against his accusers, forcing them to pay legal fees and seeing lawyers who file the suits sanctioned.
Dershowitz said he’s “not necessarily in favor of that, but there is legal recourse.”
He went on to note that people who supported Trump are also paying a price, such as being blocked by leftists from speaking at colleges and universities.
Dershowitz indicated that kind of retribution is new.
“I’m old enough to remember Kennedy and Nixon was a very divided election, but we never had these kinds of recriminations,” said Dershowitz. “But today we have recriminations.”