Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Friday that the Jan. 6 committee's public hearing on Thursday night was ''not a fair proceeding'' in that it was ''one-sided'' and ''unethical.''
''Take, for example, President Trump's speech on Jan. 6,'' Dershowitz said on ''Spicer & Co.'' ''He said at the end of the speech he wanted people to show their voices patriotically and peacefully.
''They doctored the tape,'' he continued. ''They edited those words out. If a prosecutor ever did that, they'd be disbarred. You can't present part of the tape and deliberately omit the rest of the tape in order to mislead the audience, especially when the other side has no opportunity to cross-examine, no opportunity to present its own evidence.''
Citing data from Nielsen Media Research, the New York Post reports that more than 20 million Americans tuned into Thursday night's prime-time hearing by the House select committee investigating last year's Capitol attack — a larger figure than watched this year's Academy Awards ceremony.
According to the Post, Thursday's public hearing was the first of six the committee plans to hold in the coming weeks to reveal its findings about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of protesters stormed the Capitol building to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden's victory in the Electoral College.
Dershowitz went on to say that if the leader of Black Lives Matter had been arrested for inciting violence because a speech they made led to violence, he would defend them ''on the grounds that the First Amendment protects advocacy, it doesn't protect incitement.''
''So, President Trump committed no crimes,'' he said. ''Anybody who thinks that he did fails to understand the First Amendment.''
Because Donald Trump's side had no opportunity to present its case, Dershowitz said the committee had a ''special ethical obligation not to cheat, not to defraud the viewers, and that's exactly what the Democrats, with their two Republicans, did yesterday.''
''They cheated the viewers of hearing the actual words that Donald Trump spoke,'' he said.
To ensure a fair hearing, Dershowitz said there should have been an independent commission, one like the 9/11 Commission.
''People would take seriously a nonpartisan, non-biased commission,'' he said. ''But nobody should take seriously this one-sided basketball game in which only one team is allowed to shoot for the basket, and the other team is not even allowed to defend.''
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