hence this impeachment and i started reading my book the case against impeaching trump when hillary clinton looked like she was going to be elected president then the original title for the book was the case against beaching hillary clinton as i put it like that and that the republicans would have feature in day one so i'm the same alan dershowitz case you're larry king we haven't changed one bit in the many many years i know you since we grew up. why do you think people perceived the 2 halves because i'm now not on their side 7 this is yankees versus red sox and it's as if i were you know a yankee supporter and a yankee fan and the red sox are accused of cheating and as a lawyer i said well maybe let me look at the scene with the red sox really cheating with a chorus should really be fired they would regard me as a cheater but this is not sports this is the constitution i'm always on the side of constanta how did you become part of the times team well it was lawyers call me and

then he called me my wife was not happy about it she didn't want to do it and. we were at a dinner together. i was with other friends and he went over to my wife and started talking to her and try to persuade her that i should join the defense team he didn't persuade her but in the end we decided that what i could do consistent with my own principles was to present the constitutional 'd case against his impeachment on the 2 articles that have been a latch obstruction of congress and abuse of power because i don't believe those are constitutionally permissible criteria so that's how i got in the case i'm proud of my rolling to speak on the floor of the senate and make solely a constitutional argument does your wife still disagree with you doing it. she's of mixed mind she understands that it's important for the country for this argument to be presented but it's had a big negative impact on our private life i mean many friends have abandoned us

people won't talk to us people whose kids i wrote recommendations for in college i got up in the middle of night and defended them when they were pulled over for drunken driving they won't talk to me because they perceive me as on i'm sure up side look i voted for hillary clinton i'm a liberal democrat i oppose many of trump's policies on immigration on health care on the environment on gun control on women's rights and gay rights but i am a lawyer and as a lawyer you stand up for the constitution in this country maybe sadly we have associated the lawyer with the client we do you know we do i've been associated with o.j. simpson with jeffrey epstein with close bond below and you know that's mccarthyism larry you and i grew up during mccarthyism we remember very well when lawyers were cues that being communist because they defended people who were accused of being communist tell me how the teen works do you gather together do you discuss what your role will the how does it worth it's really not a team in that respect i'm independent i'm just making my constitutional argument i

have never met most of the members of the team i didn't even know that ken starr was going to be on it until just the day before it i was told so i'm not part of the team in the sense of day to day it's a little bit like the o.j. case you know the o.j. case i had a very special role to perform up argued motions i was going to be the appellate lawyer i was the legal specialist but i was going to be involved in the day to day factual analysis the same thing is true here somebody analogized me to a special teams field goal kicker maybe i have to come in and kick the field goal to win the game but you know i don't scrimmage with the rest of the team on a daily basis if the if the trial hour long is on the way home in the sand something legally. what does the constitution argument mean the trial the men some bum before the temple what does it mean there in the trial it is what it is you know the argument will still be made to members of the senate that the 2 grounds

for impeachment are impermissible under the constitution and it will give them a basis for acquitting regardless of the facts because you don't reach the facts if you agree with me that the 2 articles of impeachment are permissible give you an example let's assume a person is charged with a crime of being dishonest and then there's a list of things that you have dishonesty was you never get to the list of things this is not a crime to be dishonest it's a sin but not a crime it's not impeachable offense to be dishonest or to abuse your power or to obstruct congress so you don't get to the evidence under my view. allan bag in 1998 on my c.n.n. program you said impeachment didn't require the president to commit a crime now when we're right back then or now well it's very simple in 1998 when we were talking about bill clinton the issue is not whether or not a crime is required to be impeached because everybody admitted clinton was or to

the crime the crime was perjury the only issue is whether it was a high crime so back then you asked me and i gave an opinion off the cuff that i didn't think a technical crime would be required. i've learned a lot since then i'm a scholar i'm an academic i.q. research when the issue came up with trump trump of course the big issue is whether you need a crime i went back and read old the legislative history of all the debates that congress i went back i read blackstone i went back and i read the federalist papers and i've now come to the conclusion 'd that criminals like behavior a kin to treason bribery is required by the constitution to the extent that i have altered my view somewhat that's what scholars are supposed to do you go with the evidence i went with the evidence and these are my views now based on my review of all the evidence how do you feel when other constitutional lawyers disagree with you but that's common i have a different view on i am mine is a nonpartizan view 1st i think that most of the scholars like larry tribe would

completely agree with me if hillary clinton were 'd being impeached he doesn't pass the shoe on the other foot this let me give you an example from larry tribe back at the time in 1988 tribe was insistent that a president who was a sitting president could not be prosecuted for a crime that was clear and then donald trump gets elected and suddenly larry tribe gets woke up and he says oh no i was wrong back then i'm right now a sitting president can be prosecuted look scholars change their minds but he calls me a hypocrite for changing my mind when he changes mine in a much more partisan fashion alan what did you think though when you learned. forget the impeachment forget it when you learn that president trump as the head of a foreign country did do him a favor. come on that's not fact upon fact what else can you interpret it well but that's not an impeachable offense there are lots of things

presidents do that are terrible the decision to go to war with iraq was a terrible terrible other decision many many decisions presidents make i disagree with but the framers were very careful they excluded a great many things from the criteria that were debated and discussed because they didn't want the open ended criteria for impeachment they wanted firm clear definable crate eerier so that the president doesn't serve at the will of the congress view don't think the founding fathers would have hold this in terrible terrible concept to know that a president had asked the head of not a crime to know if they knew that the president of the united states george washington had engaged in a deal with a foreign country to please so he doesn't have trouble with jefferson they were they were not of a boy that. they would have certainly would have liked it by the way there was

a lot of intrigue during the early days with jefferson in france and the j. theory and the x. y. and z. there was a lot * of intrigue early on in american history and american presidents were accused of abusing their power including george washington because he refused to disclose evidence about the john jay treaty including jefferson including adams they were all accused of abuse of power so i think the framers would have understood the difference between what voters should focus on abuse of power and what the constitution permits us and teach men which are treason bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors i'm told that now 500 legal scholars have signed a letter accusing slump of having engaged in impeachable conduct now ok you study that doesn't that move you in all that people who hold the same profession you do constitutional lawyers don't agree with you does that cause you to step back and look in again no absolutely not let me tell you why i have gone through the list

and i'm convinced that they asked majority of people on that list wouldn't name thing if hillary clinton were being a feature comparable conduct constitutional lawyers like anybody else are influenced by partisan politics i am not i pass the shoe on the other foot test what i say about trump i would say about clinton i would say about any president i am nonpartisan when it comes to this but i cannot say that about my other academic colleagues some of them are but a great many of them would come to a different decision depending on who the president is and depending on which party their president was from was that amendment high crimes and misdemeanors written poorly. yes of course half the constitution was written poorly due process equal protection a cruel and unusual punishment many parts of the constitution were written poorly but i'm now going through the whole history of how it came to be written what

happened is one of the founders suggested now administration which is grounds for impeachment in england and madison said no that's too big an open ended it would turn the united states into a parliamentary democracy where the chief executive serves at the will of the legislature and that's when they substituted high crimes and misdemeanors as heart of the c. group of treason bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors so other high crimes and misdemeanors have to be kin to treason bribery that's under old rules of interpretation when you have a group of things and you can't figure out what the last one says you look at what the others were i'll give you an example justice scalia gave a wonderful to the group or spouse mickey mantle. and then he gave a series of others said joe dimaggio. mohammad ali and other great competitors when you try to figure out what other competitors

are you know put in sample there is a great competitor you put in an athlete because the 1st 3 are athletes so when you put somebody else other you put in an athlete when it's treason bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors you don't get an abuse of power you put in something like obstruction of justice or you put in extortion or you put in perjury those will fit but they general concepts like abuse of congress shit like sam walton would fit among athletes want to talk with alan dershowitz we'll be right back with more politicking after the break.

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bad to politicking i'm talking with alan dershowitz constitutional scholar harvard law school professor of medicine and member of president donald tomes legal team for the senate impeachment trial he joins me via skype what did you mean by the term you used for crime. tactical combos the term you used in the dean 88 technical crime hey it is what is that i don't think you need to prove all the elements of a specific crime. scene this is not a specific criminal trial we have to prove all the elements of for example treason which are very very difficult to prove or all the elements of burglary or.

rivalry would you have to prove is criminal behavior behavior that everybody knew is bribery but let's assume it's beyond the statute of limitations or let's assume that person was outside of the country when he did it those jurisdictional elements would not have to be true so no a technical crime doesn't have to be proved a criminal type of you would have to be proved do you do when was the last time you talked to the president. so a couple of days ago when he called to thank me for making the decision to join his team and he thanked my wife as well because she was very reluctant to have me do this because she wanted me to maintain my independence. mitch mcconnell do you think these why can't i'm puzzled by this why can't witnesses and evidence be introduced at the beginning that's the way trials on the present question brings

all of all the witnesses that's up to the senate the constitution how do you think right i think have no problem as long as witnesses can come in on both sides you can't have witnesses just on one side if you have witnesses against the president the president has to be a that's what it has good for he wants to do that the president personally wants to do that but his legal team and i'm not part of that aspect of it would prefer to keep it neat and clean and argue that delegations don't rise to the level of individual offense or you don't meet witnesses i take no position and you say keep it neat and clean does not look good well i take no position on that that's up to is the rest of his legal team i'm there to argue constitutional issues and the constitution merely says the senate shall be the sole judge of and p. of removal and so. you've said in the past in many interviews that we've done that but you don't have to like your client right do you like donald trump i hardly know

him i've met him 6 or 7 maybe less than 10 times between 5 and 10 times in my life and generally the times i've met him that have always been with other people around . so i didn't vote for him i voted against him i voted for hillary clinton i'm a liberal democrat i don't think it's appropriate for me to make a comment about my personal views of the of the president as a lawyer what do you make of the actions of rudy giuliani. well rudy is a very good lawyer very tough lawyer i've noticed since 1973 when we had our 1st case against each other and i don't know all the facts i'm going to presume him innocent as all american should be presumed innocent then i'm going to wait to hear what the evidence is on both sides i don't think i haven't seen any suggestion that he's committed any kind of a crime by the way on getting back to normal term for a minute he has always been extremely nice to me and my wife on the base i 7

whatever times i met with him i can't say anything critical about him on the other hand i'm critical of many of his policies i've disagreed of his policies on immigration on climate control and gay rights on or his right to choose we disagree politically but that doesn't mean that i can't have a reasonable relationship with somebody do you have a democratic candidate you favor i'd like to see a democratic candidate at the center so i'm you know looking at people like quote fisher and biden but i'm not going to make any position take any endorsements at this point i want to hear the rest of the debates and see what the field looks like i hole i also known bloomberg for a long time not well but you know met him on a couple of occasions i think the democratic field has a lot of very good candidates but i'm not going to no direct as a liberal democrat as you say you are you can't support trump. well i have to know who's running against them i owe you would you know those candidates do you

disagree with anders if sanders gets the nomination i will actively campaign against him i will follow him from state to state urging americans to vote against them why the man went to england and indorsed jeremy corbin for the prime ministership that for me was a red line jeremy corbyn is one of the man who is most promoted and tolerated anti-semitism in england and in europe and anybody who went and indorsed him i am going to campaign vigorously against i sure hope that sanders doesn't get the nomination because he does i have him in my you know i'm going to be there pointing out what he has done over the years and i've interviewed bernie sanders many times i've never heard him make an anti semitic comment and then a while and he's jewish. so is norman finkelstein so is known chomsky so as to get a lot out sloan some of the worst people in terms of not promoting jewish values or

are jews that's no excuse karl marx was a jew at least the jew by heritage so that's no excuse i don't think that sinners an anti-semite i think he tolerate anti-semitism among the hard hard left in the democratic party i don't think he's done enough to condemn it i don't he says he speaks the words but then he does the deeds and i think that what he did in england going over and indorsing jeremy corbyn crossed the red line for me. when people come up to you and they say these we started the interview and say they're disappointed or alan this is not the alan we knew how do you respond to them just on the constitutional question because you didn't have to take this you didn't have to be part of his team now of course not my wife got a shirt that i wore on martha's vineyard because so many people that question and the shirt. says it's the constitution stupid and that's what it is this the

constitution when people say the disappointed in me i have an answer you have no right to be disappointed in me only my mother my wife and my children have a right to be disappointed in me you don't understand me you don't know me you have no rights over my mind my soul or my body so i'm going to continue to do what i do everything i do i do on principle it's been very very coarse leader me to act on principle all my life because i make a lot of enemies working on principle but i have never deviated from my principles as a civil libertarian as a constitutionalist and hopefully as a as a mench already things going to happen do you think there's any chance he will be not found not guilty you know i've been there in history shifty 5 years and i will never predict the outcome of a trial if witnesses are allowed in it to change the dynamic anything to change the dynamic new material new evidence i go in always assuming that there is a substantial possibility that my client could be convicted and that's what i'm

going into this thing with that mindset why is the constitution lasted so long the cost it has been abided by but if larry tribe got his way i think we would see the end of the constitution very quickly because he would distort it to achieve his own partisan political ands and i think many people on the hard left and the right. would distort the constitution to achieve their partisan ends for their short term partisan benefits they would jettison what has kept the constitutional law for many years the impeached visions of the constitution were very difficult and that's why we've only use them 3 times in our history and and we've used them wrong every time except with richard nixon every time was wrong andrew johnson was wrong bill clinton was wrong donald trump is wrong richard nixon was right that's why he resigned we didn't need to have an impeachment. and laurence tribe though as for a long time been a very respected lawyer almost one of those they said and possible nominees to the

high court i actually supported that but that was back in the day when he was a fair academic today he's a political hack he has become a partisan supporter of the democrats and the most extreme wing of the democratic party and the people who wanted to impeach from from day one you know that larry tribe wanted to impeach ronald reagan he wrote an article in the new york times in which he said donald trump in which he sent ronald reagan was guilty of impeachable abuse of power. if he wanted to impeach ronald reagan on grounds of abuse of power it shows you how abuse of power could be so terribly misused reporters and purposes when you speak at the impeachment trial i well i'm planning to make an argument solely on the constitutional grounds of about 2 thirds of the

way through writing it down i'm sitting at home with a bunch of old dusty books going back and reading everything that led to the impeachment visions of the constitution and i'm now scheduled to speak on on friday everything of course a subject to change and you haven't spoken in the senate it's interesting i was in the senate representing member alan cranston who is really no i am well right so. i represented him i was allowed to sit next to him in the senate so i've sat in the senate boiler they told me in no uncertain terms you do not get to open up your mouth must you get elected to this body so i sat there and i whispered to him and i passed the notes but i never got to speak only during this kind of receding there's an outsider get to speak what do you think of the chief justice i like him very much i think he is a brilliant brilliant man he went to harvard law school he was one of the best lawyers in washington d.c. even though he's very conservative i supported his nomination and appointment to

the supreme court and i think he's been an excellent chief justice though i disagree with a lot of his opinions. do you have appeared before me and when when he was a judge not that i can recall. i can't i can't remember whether in my last appearance he was there or not so i i don't remember how long are you going to keep on keepin on when is al i'm on sure it's going to tie the knot retire as long as you do larry you're might grow votto i think you go it's long as you're going and we'll see you as long as the good lord gives me the strength to defend civil liberties you know i still do have my cases now actually 60 percent of my cases pro bono i still represent people all over the world who are in trouble and afford to have lawyers people don't read about those aspects of my cases but i can never quit that if people call me and say i really need you to represent me my kids in jail my daughter is in prison or russia out of there and i'm going to continue to be there

allan thank you so much for giving us the time today always a pleasure with you larry take care alan dershowitz joining me on this edition of politic and we thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politicking hash tag that's all for this edition of politicking. there of russia and on this. you know world big partners

and the authors and conspirators it's time to wake up to dig deeper. to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bats and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. terrorists long to russian and light its. many call the impeachment

trial of donald trump in the us senate a political show well if it is it's not buried entertaining in fact it's quite boring repetitive and tedious clearly this entire process is a blood fest to play for keeps but what about the institutional damage left in the wake of this low energy process. which. many times he should be. one of the people so he can be in luck because a lot of us are. just me about what i mean i well me and the most of the things he. has done. before.

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to determine it. and then have none removed could you hear michele right. since most of. the thousands filled the streets of paris in protest against controversial pets and changes and from its president presented his plan for reforming the system to his cabinet on friday. described as an experiment until the u.k.'s national health service is under attack going to cost of its kind legal challenge for prescribing a life changing drug to youngsters to change that. explains why the plaintiff's case is so unique. looking when all skin young children. consent to an experiment can truly. be i mean you can said.