Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax Wednesday that the Democrats are trying to "find every which way to disqualify" former President Donald Trump from running again in 2024 and that Monday's raid on his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida should have been handled differently.
"The problem here is the Justice Department," Dershowitz said during an appearance on Newsmax's "Spicer & Co." "They should have done this by subpoena, not by search warrant. There's no reason to believe that any of this would be destroyed. Trump was 1,000 miles away. The boxes were in the basement. I don't see any reason not to give a subpoena."
When asked about the narrative that the Democrats are trying to use the raid on Mar-a-Lago to convict Trump of a crime so that he can't run for president again, Dershowitz dismissed the idea.
"You know, there's not a chance in a million it will work," the retired law professor said. "The Constitution provides four criteria for running for president. You have to be 35, born in America, you have to have not fought against the Union in the Civil War, and you have to not have been impeached, with the added disqualification for office."
"If you make those four qualifications, you can run for president from prison," he continued. "You can run for president from a hospital. You can run for president if you're a felon. The Congress can't reduce or change the criteria."
Dershowitz added that the situation is just another example of the weaponization of the justice system.
"What they're trying to do is get Trump, one way or another," he said. "It's like when Lavrentiy Beria said to Stalin, 'Show me the man and I'll find you the crime.' They're trying to find every which way to disqualify him from running."
A self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, Dershowitz said, "as an American," he wants "to have the right to vote against" Trump.
"I am not a supporter of Donald Trump politically," he said. "I have the right to vote against him and no bureaucrat or politician or attorney general or prosecutor should be able to deny me that right to vote against him, and you that right to vote for him. The people decide the president, not bureaucrats."
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