Dershowitz: Democrats ‘completely failed’ to meet constitutional standard

Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Trump’s legal team, said the Democrats “completely failed” to meet the constitutional standard for removing Trump from office in their opening argument last week. 

Dershowitz told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that he thought the House managers “presented the strongest case they could” but “didn’t come close to alleging impeachable offenses.”

{mosads}“They completely failed to meet that high constitutional standard, and therefore it would be unconstitutional to remove a president based on the allegations that were made against him in the articles of impeachment,” he said. 

Wallace asked Dershowitz to assume all of the Democrats’ statements on the Senate floor are true, then asked whether “it’s still not an impeachable offense?”

Dershowitz said the president’s legal team will show “it’s not true” and what was shown was “presented incompletely” and does not demonstrate impeachable offenses. 

“Even if the factual allegations are true, which are highly disputed in which the defense team will show contrary evidence, but even if true, they did not allege impeachable offenses,” he said. 

“So, there can’t be a constitutionally authorized impeachment.”

Dershowitz’s analysis of the House managers’ arguments comes after the Democrats made their opening statements in the Senate impeachment trial. The president’s defense team has begun its opening statements and will continue Monday. 

The Democrats are alleging that Trump abused his power in his dealings with Ukraine and obstructed Congress in its investigation, which Dershowitz has said are not impeachable offenses.