Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz weighed in on the reported FBI raid on former President Trump’s Florida home at Mar-A-Lago on Monday and slammed the Biden administration for weaponizing the justice system.
“A raid is supposed to be a last resort,” Dershowitz pointed out. “But this administration has used the weaponization of the justice system against its political enemies. It’s arrested people, denied them bail, put them in handcuffs – used all kinds of techniques that are not usually applied to American citizens.”
“I suspect it has to do with some investigations leading toward Donald Trump and some of his associates,” he theorized. “Again, the law is clear: You don’t engage in a raid unless you’ve exhausted all of the other remedies, unless you believe that the person you raided will destroy the evidence. Raids are not a first recourse in America; they’re a last recourse.”
“And so the government will have to show a court eventually that they exhausted all other possibilities or they had a reasonable basis for believing that the evidence would be destroyed if it was sought in the normal legal course of events through a subpoena,” he explained. “Raids are a last resort, but today, in many instances, it’s being used as a first resort.”
Dershowitz opined that many raids conducted by current law enforcement are impelled by a desire for celebrity, as he stated, “In order to get on television, they have a lot of these raids where people are arrested, put in handcuffs, sometimes put in leg shackles, bail denied. Presumption of innocence still applies, but it’s applied only in theory, not in practice.”
Referencing the reported FBI raid at Trump’s home, he proclaimed, “Unless there is evidence that we’re not aware of, this is improper, and it is misconduct. We have to find out what the facts are. But we have to make sure the shoe fits on the other foot – that we want to make sure what’s being one here is something that Democrats would not oppose if it were being done to Democratic operatives, as well. I don’t think it passes the test.”
In November 2019, Dershowitz was asked by radio show host John Catsimatidis, “Do the Democrats today think that the American public is so stupid on some of the things they’re doing?”
Dershowitz replied, “They’re very scary. They’re very frightening to any civil libertarian. Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican; whether you come from New York or the middle of the country, you should be frightened by efforts to try to create crimes out of nothing.”
Story cited here.
