Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s effort to strip former President Donald Trump of presidential immunity — recently granted by the Supreme Court — is, in a word, “unconstitutional.”
“It’s just as unconstitutional as when southern senators tried to legislatively overrule Brown v. Board of Education and other liberal decisions that they disapproved of,” Dershowitz said during an appearance on Newsmax’s “The Record With Greta Van Susteren.”
“Now the Democrats are playing the game,” he said. “The decision about what’s an official act is constitutional in nature. It grows out of Article II of the Constitution and Congress has no authority to limit the constitutional immunity, just like the president would have no authority to limit the constitutional immunity of senators. Remember, senators and congressmen have limited, but serious, immunity, as does the judiciary. These are matters of constitutional law, and what we’re hearing now is that Schumer is trying to really use the legislative process to undo the Constitution.”
Dershowitz said the Democrat Senate leader is “listening to progressive law professors like Professor Laurence Tribe,” who has “really become part of the political effort to manipulate the Supreme Court to make it come out its way.”
“Tribe actually favors court packing, and other radical progressives favor really undoing the Supreme Court because they don’t like it,” he said. “They liked the Supreme Court back in the day, and they tried to prevent legislative efforts to somehow diminish the power of the court. But now that they don’t like the court, they’re part of the problem, and I think that we, the American public, have to stand by the power of the Supreme Court to make decisions under the Constitution.
“We may agree with them, we may disagree with them, and they may change over time, but right now, the Supreme Court has held that there is a constitutional immunity for acts that grow out of Article I and Article II and acts that are also part of the presidential prerogative,” he continued. “And I think that will remain the law.”
He added that the current trend of politicization — of bar associations, professors, and the legal system as a whole — is “not good for America.”
“It’s not good for our rule of law,” Dershowitz said. “We should respect the rule of law, to be sure. But don’t try to use the legislative process to diminish the constitutional rights of presidents or congressmen or senators.”
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
- Find Newsmax channel in your home via cable and satellite systems – More Info Here
- Watch Newsmax+ on your home TV app or smartphone and watch it anywhere! Try it for FREE — See More Here: NewsmaxPlus.com
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.