Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Monday executive privilege protects former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying against his former boss, Donald Trump, in Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into alleged attempts by Trump to overturn the 2020 election.
On Friday, Trump's attorneys filed a motion with a federal judge to quash the grand jury subpoena, citing executive privilege. Also Friday, Pence reportedly filed a motion to quash the subpoena, arguing he has constitutional protection under the "speech and debate" clause.
Regarding Trump's argument, Dershowitz told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" executive privilege "absolutely" protects Pence from testifying.
"What could be a greater case of executive privilege than conversations between a sitting president and a vice president?" said Dershowitz, whose book "Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law" goes on sale March 14.
Dershowitz said the Justice Department's argument that executive privilege applies only to the current president is "absurd."
"No president would speak to a cabinet member or vice president if he knew that a person he was running against could reveal those confidential materials," he said. "It would be like a lawyer having conversations with a client, and then years later, people saying, ‘ah, you're no longer the lawyer, so now you can disclose the conversation.' "
Dershowitz said he is hopeful the court will rule in Trump's favor but added courts nowadays have two different rules of justice: one for anyone associated with Trump, and another for everyone else.
"Courts have been ruling repeatedly against Trump, sometimes correctly, but it has become a pattern," he said. "And I'm afraid that this case may make some very bad law that will come back and hurt the Democrats in years to come because you want every president, Republican or Democrat, to be able to confidently speak to his vice president or her vice president, and make sure that even in years to come, those conversations are not forced to be revealed by an administration."
Dershowitz, a former attorney for Trump, said he devotes a portion of his new book to executive privilege.
"I'm not a Trump supporter," he said. "I voted against him twice and intend to vote against him for a third time. But when it comes to constitutional issues, and executive privilege is a constitutional issue — it's rooted in Article II of the Constitution — you can't have a rule that allows one candidate from one party to expose the opposing candidate to having his privileged information disclosed.
"Next thing you know, they're going to attack the lawyer-client privilege."
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