Alan Dershowitz arguing in Trump’s impeachment hearing (screengrab)
On Monday, as former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz delivered his defenses of President Donald Trump to the Senate, legal analyst Elie Mystal fact-checked and debunked his "sleight of hand" arguments in real time:
All right let's do this: Sleight of hand #1: Dersh says he will analyze why the Framers chose the words they did as… https://t.co/3PUHmO2Rth— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580172914.0
Sleight #2: Dersh is saying that you need a stated crime. That's the opposite of the position he's taken his whole… https://t.co/xunlkUD08Q— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580172986.0
Sleight #3: His throwing out a lot of things that sound like historical "fact" to establish his credibility. He's t… https://t.co/zxJ6Rmylzu— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580173089.0
People do this all the time when talking about sports: "Honus Wagner, Cal Ripiken, Derek Jeter, these are all short… https://t.co/pEUCDX9ng2— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580173224.0
Sleight #4: Dersh says that he's not implying that the Senate is not "legally bound" to the arguments that impeachm… https://t.co/EtT7viswP0— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580173477.0
Literally EVERYTHING he says going forward is just a fancy show. He gave you the ANSWER right up top: the Senate CA… https://t.co/uioVEwIEZ9— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580173556.0
For those playing along at home, they do this on the bar exam ALL THE TIME. They'll give you this very long fact pa… https://t.co/LSFxh1pTGF— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580173625.0
Dersh: For Congress to ignore the words of the Constitution itself, would place Congress about the law. Again, De… https://t.co/ptQFmPKtZZ— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580173804.0
Sleight #5: This is more a FedSoc thing than a Dersh thing. See when the FedSoc wants the Constitution to say somet… https://t.co/xzyaQdsq5g— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580174004.0
So, you can see, in this way, the originalists can make the Constitution say whatever they want it to say. The can… https://t.co/GScQkWwm7o— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580174132.0
Sleight #6: Dersh makes the baseless claim that the inclusion of "other high crimes and misdemeanors" does NOT incl… https://t.co/sDpyfEDl1v— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580174275.0
Sleight #7: He's arguing that the inclusion of non-criminal language to support impeachment (Which, AGAIN, DERSH AD… https://t.co/6GgZrIijf8— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580174442.0
I feel like I'm being forced to take an issue-spotter, live, and at rapid speed. I've basically had nightmares abou… https://t.co/dbD4VOp7TR— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580174581.0
@ewarren Sleight #8: Dersh is trying to parse... the jurisdiction of the court of impeachment from... the grounds f… https://t.co/VRmn3GvRBq— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580174799.0
@ewarren All right, well here's something: UNLIKE STARR... Dershowtiz at least admits his hypocrisy. He says that h… https://t.co/9fQA3f9OkX— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580174877.0
@ewarren Sleight #9: Omg, he's talking about the rule of lenity. Okay peeps, this is an OLD standard of interpreta… https://t.co/9yxqNmQ38p— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175043.0
@ewarren Basically, we get out of "lenity" today by striking laws that are not sufficiently *definite* by ruling th… https://t.co/E7nXZNjOgc— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175124.0
@ewarren Sleight #10: Dersh is making an argument for why Abuse of Power should NOT be grounds for impeachment. Bec… https://t.co/WkTsJQsfPR— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175206.0
@ewarren Dersh is arguing motive, like a good criminal defense attorney. Unfortunately for Dersh,… https://t.co/wGVZAfo5Hv— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175333.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Sleight #11: NOW Dersh is arguing that even if Abuse of Power is impeachable, ordering a… https://t.co/7302eZzGzq— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175409.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump "Nothing in the Bolton revelations would rise to the level of abuse of power." ... this… https://t.co/gtyKjyF1yn— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175503.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump International deal making: not an abuse of power. International election interference: clearly an abuse of power.— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175548.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Sleight #12: He's back to maladministration, arguing that when it was rejected, they also… https://t.co/UFBMbI7NzE— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175623.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump "By expressly rejecting maladministration, they implicitly rejected abuse." Again, he ha… https://t.co/YyUaBtbJ5B— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175708.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Sleight #13: He's naming all these things that the President might be impeached for (twee… https://t.co/BILJNlvEXe— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175853.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump This, per usual, is the intellectually soft "slippery-slope" argument. Let's just name so… https://t.co/ICcXeyMgpU— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580175922.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Sleight #14: "abuse of power and obstruction of congress are so far from what the Founder… https://t.co/pOyzjJNDSJ— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176027.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump I mean, he's just spent an hour trying to explain why Abuse of Power isn't what the found… https://t.co/624wgCBzqI— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176086.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Dersh is just out here *really* counting on people being slower and dumber than he is. An… https://t.co/zgC0AYp0hA— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176176.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Sleight #15: Dersh is complaining that because his arguments have been roundly rejected b… https://t.co/ANONVJuEAH— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176324.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Sleight #16: Dersh says that he would be making the same Constitutional arguments regardl… https://t.co/3KXNWTf2w4— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176400.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Like... I WOULD BE FAT WHETHER I WAS A WHITE MAN OR A BLACK MAN... Because I like TACOS.… https://t.co/81PB85NlR5— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176485.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump I will close with what Dershowitz said 50 minutes before he stopped talking: https://t.co/kdQU9py4X3— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176564.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump Dershowitz admitted that THE SENATE is not bound to the legal interpretation that impeach… https://t.co/RERK9TcFSd— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176645.0
@ewarren @realDonaldTrump I'll let professors @tribelaw or @ewarren grade my performance in today's Dershowitz issu… https://t.co/32IEwqwT0V— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1580176725.0
