By: Ellen Cans
Alan Dershowitz, the famed Harvard law professor, said he was kept off a panel of constitutional scholars testifying at a House impeachment hearing last week, mostly due to an accusation that he sexually assaulted a victim of sex trafficker Jefferey Epstein. “They wanted me to be there. They called and asked me if I would be willing to testify, and I said I would. And then as a result of these false accusations against me regarding the Jeffrey Epstein matter, accusations which I have disproved,” Dershowitz said on John Catsimatidis’ AM 970 radio show on Sunday, indignant not to have been given the opportunity to speak against the impeachment.
As reported by the NY Post, last month, Dershowitz, who once offered legal representation for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sued Epstein accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, in Manhattan federal court. Giuffre has alleged that he had sexual relations with her. Dershowitz’s lawsuit holds he never met Giuffre, let alone had relations with her. Giuffre has sued Dershowitz back for defamation, asserting that he is calling her a liar and opportunist.
“Just because there is an accusation out there, the decision was made not to use me. Also, because the Republicans are only given one witness. If they had been given two witnesses, probably I would’ve been used along with Turley,” he said, referring to George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley, who testified for the Republicans.
Dershowitz has been an outspoken defender for the President in the impeachment fiasco, blasting House Democrats last month, for trying “to make crimes out of nothing.” He said he would have disagreed with parts of Turley’s testimony at last Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing. “He said – even though he did a very good job defending the president’s rights – that a president could be impeached for gross abuse of office. That’s just not in the Constitution. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s only four criteria for impeachment: treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. Abuse of office is not one of them,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz has contended that abuse of office is just not something a president cannot be impeached for. “First they made up collusion… I searched the statute books. There’s no crime of collusion… with a foreign country. After that, they said obstruction of Congress,” Dershowitz said last month. “In a desperate effort to try to find crimes [committed by] President Trump, they’re just making it up. And that means we are all in danger.”
