Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and one of the country's most renowned constitutional experts, found it laughable that The New York Times, citing a recent piece, couldn't locate a single academic who favored the Trump team's request for a special master — amid the legal battle between the Department of Justice and former President Donald Trump.
"I'm an academic, and I'm in favor of [the special master appointment]," Dershowitz told Newsmax on Tuesday's "Spicer & Co." with hosts Sean Spicer and Lyndsay Keith.
"I guarantee you one thing: If this were President Hillary Clinton, or former President Hillary Clinton, and she had a search like this, and the judge — who was a Democrat — had appointed a special master, virtually every one of those academics would be applauding this," said Dershowitz, who was a member of Trump's impeachment defense team.
"It is hypocrisy, and [the academics] failed the 'shoe-on-the-other-foot' test, and no one should take them seriously," Dershowitz said.
It's worth noting that in many of his Newsmax appearances, Dershowitz has disclosed that he didn't vote for Trump in the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections.
That aside, Dershowitz — who is promoting his book "The Price of Principle" — still values the equal application of rule of law at every turn.
It's always about fairness, he added.
"I just think this [the latest special master pushback is] part of the 'Get Trump' mentality among experts and advocates who are academics," Dershowitz said. "They just apply different rules to Trump."
Dershowitz also has a firm allegiance to attorney-client privilege, whether it involves a past U.S. president, a future contender for the nation's highest office or an ordinary citizen.
"The DOJ cannot judge itself," in terms of gauging which materials seized from the FBI's Aug. 8 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort warrant attorney-client protections, said Dershowitz, before adding, "Who will guard the guardians?"
Regarding the special master request, Dershowitz declared that DOJ and the FBI "have no case" in terms of overturning U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's Monday ruling.
Down the line, however, DOJ could succeed in preserving President Joe Biden's October 2021 decision to waive executive privilege regarding Trump — or any other president, past or present.
And if that decision holds, Dershowitz said it would have far-reaching consequences with future administrations.
If Biden's executive-privilege decision sticks, Dershowitz rhetorically wondered, "what chance do we ever have of another president confiding in their chief of staff, if that president" knows that everything will become public anyway.
"If you're going to have executive privilege, it has to survive the incumbency of a certain president," regardless of political party affiliation, Dershowitz said. "It has to be like lawyer-client privilege. ... Executive privileges cannot be terminated by an adversary [Biden]. ... Here, you have an adversary [Trump], the man that's going to run against you" as president in 2024.
"It makes no sense at all," he said.
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