Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, had a simple response to why the Justice Department (DOJ) assigned separate special counsels (Jack Smith, Robert Hur) for the respective classified document disputes involving former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden.
Attorney General Merrick Garland is essentially the special counsel "since he'll be the one making the determinations" of whether to prosecute Trump or Biden, Dershowitz told Newsmax on Monday evening, while appearing on "Spicer & Co." with host Lyndsay Keith.
"When the Democrats do something [investigative] to the Republicans, you should expect the Republicans to do the same to Democrats. ... And I predicted that [would happen] when the Mar-a-Lago search occurred" in August.
Dershowitz, one of this country's foremost experts on the U.S. Constitution, continued by revealing there won't "be any prosecutions here. But since [the DOJ] appointed a special prosecutor for Trump, they had to appoint the same for Biden. ... Nothing's going to come of it."
If Dershowitz had influence with how the DOJ operates, he wouldn't have tapped special counsels for either case involving Trump or Biden.
"I generally don't like the position of special counsel. You're putting the target on the back of one person, instead of making comparative assessments," said Dershowitz, while adding it's likely moot — public perception-wise — that Biden and Trump have different factors playing into their document disputes.
For example, Biden's alleged mishandling of top-secret government materials derives from his time as vice president (to President Barack Obama), when he held no powers of declassification.
From Dershowitz's perspective, since Biden (Democrat) and Trump (Republican) are the early favorites to face off in the 2024 presidential election, the DOJ likely won't feel compelled to outline the prosecution differences with either commander-in-chief — even though Trump possessed actual declassification powers then.
"Trump doesn't have to prove anything [with declassification verification]; the government has to prove the opposite," explained Dershowitz, author of "The Price of Principle: Why Integrity Is Worth The Consequences."
And Biden, if he really wanted to set the proverbial record straight with the American people, can now declassify the documents in question, as a means of demonstrating transparency with his administration, reasoned Dershowitz.
But the Newsmax contributor believes nothing definitive will happen to either Trump or Biden, once the DOJ concludes its investigations.
"We're making too much of a big deal of this," said Dershowitz, while adding that, by all appearances, "no national security issues" were breached by the 45th and 46th presidents.
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