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To his words in the NYT's caption, Dershowitz added, "Mostly, [they're] right."
So "if the president does something which he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest," he continued, "that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment."
Thus spoke a former Harvard Law professor whose love of the limelight seduced him into a constitutionally insane argument on Trump's behalf. If this president, any president, simply declares that his shredding of sundry constitutional provisions was in the public interest, his impeachable behavior receives a pass.
Had Dershowitz decided to argue the rational, pro-removal position as voiced by virtually every constitutional scholar in the country — along with House Democrats, Senate Democrats, criminal defense lawyers, state and federal prosecutors, trial judges, county clerks, court custodians, women, children, and literate drunks protected by God — his voice would have been but one among millions.
Therefore his facetime on teevee would have been, to him, unacceptably limited, perhaps even absent. And so Dershowitz has mentally applied his Trumpian formula to himself: If a former Harvard Law professor does something which he believes will help him get oodles of television coverage, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in personal disgrace.
And boy is he wrong.