Alan Dershowitz: I Will Not Accept a Penny For Defending President Trump

Our friends over at The Hill had more:

Attorney Alan Dershowitz said Friday night that he will not be pocketing any money for his work on President Trump’s impeachment defense team.

During an appearance on "Anderson Cooper 360," the attorney said that the details of his payment arrangement haven’t “been discussed” yet, but added: “If I were to be paid, all the money would go to charity.”

“I will not take a single penny of payment that I would keep based on what I’m doing,” he said. “I’m doing this because I strongly believe in the Constitution. I strongly oppose the impeachment. I worry about the weaponization of impeachment and it could be used in other cases.” 

“But I’m not part of the regular team that will be making strategic decisions and participating in questions about whether there should be witnesses or not,” Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who also opposed former President Clinton’s impeachment, also clarified. “That’s going to be left to others.”

Dershowitz, who has filed opinion columns to The Hill as a contributor, also said he thinks Trump’s impeachment “would be unconstitutional” and warned of the “terrible precedent” he believes the move could set in the nation’s history during his television appearance.

“I join James Madison, who is very concerned that using open-ended phrases could create a way in which Congress should have too much power over the president,” he said. “I join Alexander Hamilton, who said the greatest danger is when impeachment turns on the number of votes each party can get.”

“So, I’m there to try to defend the integrity of the constitution – that benefits President Trump in this case,” he said. 

Trump on Friday unveiled Dershowitz and other high-profile figurers including Ken Starr as attorneys to make his case in the Senate impeachment trial.

Though Dershowitz has said he is not a Trump supporter and “strongly” opposes his immigration policies, he drew attention when he emerged as one of the president’s most prominent legal defenders during special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

Dershowitz captured headlines in July 2018 when he wrote about being shunned and banned from social circles on Martha’s Vineyard for defending Trump on legal matters then.

At the time, the attorney, who also defended O.J. Simpson in the 1990s, said he had saw more criticism defending Trump than when helped the former football player get acquitted in a murder trial.