The decision by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 actions at the U.S. Capitol to have a TV producer run its prime time hearing proves that its efforts have nothing to do with justice or the Constitution but everything with exercising its "partisan advantage," Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said on Newsmax on Monday.
"I think panel itself violates the rules of Congress, which require kind of bipartisan proportional balance between the members, and here you have all Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans," Dershowitz said on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "You're not gonna get both sides of the issue presented, and I do think hiring and bringing on a media person proves what the purpose of this thing is."
Former ABC News President James Goldston is to produce the program according to reports Monday, by gathering the panel's material and making it into a multimedia presentation. Goldston produced ABC's "Good Morning America" and "Nightline."
Dershowitz also spoke out against the arrest and indictment of former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, insisting that the charges of contempt for refusing to comply with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 events could easily happen to himself.
"They could subpoena me to disclose all the conversations I had with President Trump when I was defending the Constitution on his behalf and the Senate and I, of course, would refuse to comply with a legislative subpoena asking me to disclose lawyer-client information, just as a rabbi or priest would or a psychiatrist would if they asked to disclose confidential information," said Dershowitz. "I would require them to go to court first and put both sides of the issue in front of a judge."
Navarro, by refusing to speak with the panel, is saying that he should not be compelled to disclose what he considers to be executive privileged material without a court order, Dershowitz added.
"He's 100% right, and I think that's the indictment should and will be dismissed," he said.
Dershowitz also called it "overkill" not only to shackle Navarro but to put him in the same cell that had been occupied by John Hinckley, the man who tried to assassinate former President Ronald Reagan.
"It shows the partisan nature and the weaponization of the criminal justice system," said Dershowitz. "I've done this for 50-60 years now. In the normal course of events if somebody like that is going to be arrested, they sent a letter to his lawyer, and they ask him to appear in court, and he appears in a dignified way, and he's immediately given bail. You don't arrest him as he's getting on an airplane and put him in shackles. That's just showtime."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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