Former President Donald Trump won’t likely be arrested on any charges stemming from the raid on his Mar-a-Lago home, but even if he were, there still would be no legal barrier to keep him from running for president in 2024, Harvard Law School professor emeritus and Newsmax analyst Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday.
“Yes, it’s possible [but] I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Dershowitz said on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America,” adding that those who believe that an indictment and prosecution would keep Trump from campaigning are “dead wrong.”
“He can run for president even if he’s indicted, convicted, and wearing striped shirts, prison garb,” said Dershowitz. “The Constitution provides only four bases for disqualification for president, and being convicted of a crime is not one of them. Congress can’t change the criteria that are in the Constitution for the election of the president.”
Dershowitz, meanwhile, said he thinks the Justice Department was trying to circumvent the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution by bypassing a subpoena and instead obtaining a search warrant to enter Trump’s home.
“When you have a subpoena, the judge has to look at every document and see whether it’s classified, declassified, or privileged and whether a Fifth Amendment claim could be made,” said Dershowitz. “I think they were also looking for the widest array of evidence they could possibly get, including evidence relating to Jan. 6.”
Meanwhile, liberals have “always objected” to the use of search warrants rather than subpoenas, but now they are “jumping up and down” because of the FBI raid last Monday, he said.
“We’re living in an age where progressives and radicals on the left believe you can do anything,” said Dershowitz. “You can trash the Constitution. You can destroy the rule of law as long as the goal is to get Donald Trump.”
He also panned his former colleague, Laurence Tribe, who had taught Attorney General Merrick Garland while at Harvard Law School, for urging Garland, in an interview on CNN, to prosecute Trump on charges of the attempted murder of Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6.
“That is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard a law professor say, and yet, it’s praised because if you want to get Trump, any stupid statement, any violation of the Constitution, it all becomes acceptable,” he said.
Dershowitz Tuesday also said he believes the affidavit used to justify the search of Trump’s home should be released, as the former president has asked that it be made public.
“You can redact the names of agents, you can redact sources and methods, but what we want to know is what the basis of probable cause that they have.”
He added that he believes President Joe Biden when he says he did not know that the raid on Trump’s house was to take place.
“I think that the White House has tried very hard to separate themselves from the Justice Department,” he said. “Have they succeeded? Probably not … I suspect they knew that Trump was under investigation. I suspect there are other people in the White House who would probably have greater detail, perhaps in the counsel’s office, but I believe President Biden when he says he was not aware specifically that this raid was about to occur.”