In a normal court of law, there would be a "motion to dismiss" the impeachment case against President Donald Trump, legal expert Alan Dershowitz said.
"Obstruction of Congress is not an impeachable offense. Abuse of power is not an impeachable offense," he said during Monday's "The Ingraham Angle" on Fox News.
"In a perfect world [a motion to dismiss] would be ideal, but does the American public want to see an end to the trial so quickly?" said Dershowitz, who is a constitutional representative for the president in the trial. "I think that becomes a political issue."
Dershowitz stressed that "the critical point is that obstruction of Congress and abuse of power are clearly not within what the framers intended [as impeachable offenses], and I will lay out that argument quite clearly with sources."
Dershowitz explained that "if it were a criminal case and a person was, say, charged with dishonesty ... the first thing you do is make a motion to dismiss because dishonesty isn't a crime."
He also shot down arguments that, although the actions Trump took were not impeachable, he admits that he did them, saying "there is not an acknowledgment in any way by anyone on the legal team that the president did anything wrong."
Dershowitz added, "think of how dangerous it is when you start probing the motives of a president. Every president wants to win re-election, every president makes foreign policy decisions, domestic policy decision at least in part to enhance their electability."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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