Newsmax analyst says Trump's conviction would call into question the legitimacy of the 2024 presidential election
Published
Citation From the January 25, 2021, edition of Newsmax's Spicer & Co
ALAN DERSHOWITZ (ANALYST): There's never been a president who has left office impeached and presidents are different. The Constitution treats presidents uniquely. For example, the Chief Justice must preside. It's been announced today the Chief Justice will not preside. He's right. And Kamala Harris will not preside. So we're gonna have Senator Leahy preside. And the question is, then, does he get to preside and vote? Will he preside fairly? How will he rule? How will the Senate rule? This is a total mess.
And what's gonna happen is if in the event the president, former President Trump, is convicted and is disqualified, this will raise questions about the legitimacy of the 2024 election. People will ... [inaudible] ... accept an election where a group of Democratic senators with a few Republicans have denied the American public the right to vote for a candidate who they may want to see is President of the United States. This has impacts beyond 2021 to 2024 and beyond that. We're going to see established a precedent, a bad precedent, that when presidents leave office they can be impeached. Are we going to go after President Carter now? President Obama? President Clinton? President Bush? Or are we going to use this impeachment to prevent future people from running for office. It's not what the framers intended.