Over the past couple of years, famed attorney Alan Dershowitz has been an unlikely and frequent defender of President Donald Trump.
While making no bones about his liberal proclivities (or the fact that he supported Hillary Clinton), Dershowitz has found himself forced to defend Trump against a sea of ignorant left-wing pundits and legal “experts” who would rather destroy democracy than to see Trump succeed as President. That makes him a breath of fresh air in a media environment that seems to regard the Constitution as an inconvenient barrier preventing them from removing Trump from office ASAP.
But in an interview with ABC News this weekend, even Dershowitz had to acknowledge that Robert Mueller’s report was likely to be trouble for President Trump.
“I think the report is going to be devastating to the president,” Dershowitz told host George Stephanopoulos, “and I know that the president’s team is already working on a response to the report.”
But Dershowitz clarified that Trump was unlikely to face any criminal charges.
“When I say devastating,” he said, “I mean it’s going to paint a picture that’s going to be politically very devastating. I still don’t think it’s going to make a criminal case.”
We don’t disagree with Dershowitz in that we expect Mueller’s report to be extremely negative in terms of how he characterizes obstruction and collusion and all that junk. But devastating? No way. Mueller has nothing but his own opinions when it comes to obstruction, and there are clear constitutional avenues that allow Trump to do what he’s done (fire Comey, criticize Sessions, etc.)
As far as collusion, we have to guess that Mueller has only rumor and innuendo, or he would have brought the hammer down long before now. That’s not devastating to the president, politically or otherwise. In fact, the vast majority of Trump’s supporters have long since tuned this entire investigation out, so obvious it is that there is literally nothing to investigate. It’s silly, partisan, and long past its expiration date.
With Democrats soon to take control of the House, it is possible that they will use the Mueller report as a justification for impeachment. In which case, the only ones to suffer from political devastation will be them. The American people have made it clear that they do NOT want to see an impeachment trial, and that will go double if Democrats can’t bring the evidence required to seal the deal. Impeachment could very well send Trump soaring to new heights of approval just in time for the 2020 campaign season to swing into high gear.
We hope they try it. It will be the backfire of the century.
