(01-31-2020, 04:36 AM)jj82284 Wrote:

(01-30-2020, 01:36 PM)mikesez Wrote: I read more of what Dershowitz said, and it sounds like you understood him correctly.  
He's wrong.  
The US Constitution can never work this way.

What if Obama had sent some FBI spooks to provoke riots in Republican heavy parts of swing atates, and then cracked down on those riots right before election day?
He would be allowed to do that, right? If he thinks his party winning the election is in the national interest?

Any Senator voting to acquit must publicly reject Dershowitz' argument or else forfeit their claim to be supporting and defending the Constitution.

...  I must be going insane.  

Alan Dershowitz said, "If the president has mixed motives, on the one hand to act in the national interest (meaning that the underlying use of official office is in and of itself in the national interest) but there also exists personal political interest (It might make my election chances better) then that's not a corrupt intent or an abuse of power."  

""If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. Every public official that I know believes that his election is of the public interest."

Dershowitz is saying we don't have to, and should not, try to decide for ourselves what's in the national interest to answer this question.  He's saying that all that matters is if the President believes it's in the national interest. This is already incorrect. Senators can and should decide for themselves what the national interest is. That's bad enough. Then Dersh adds that the President is allowed to think of his re-election as being in the national interest for the purposes of this question.

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