Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and one of America's most prominent constitutional lawyers, didn't seem too surprised by how Georgia investigators have reportedly subpoenaed seven allies to former President Donald Trump — including Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and a handful of lawyers — as a possible prelude to impaneling a special grand jury regarding the 2020 presidential election.
"Well, you can always subpoena anybody," said Dershowitz to Newsmax Tuesday night, while appearing on "The Record With Greta Susteren."
He continued, "and then the question is, '[Does a lawyer] invoke attorney-client privilege?'"
When you subpoena lawyers, spouses, and priests, explains Dershowitz, "all of those are subject to judicial review" and certain legal protections. "There's nothing wrong with subpoenaing lawyers, as long as the goal isn't to get them to break attorney-client privilege."
And therein lies the source of Dershowitz's skepticism regarding this case.
Surely, Georgia investigators know that Trump's lawyers would be limited in providing any sworn testimony involving alleged election fraud from 2020. The attorneys might be able to share general communications, but "the privilege [comes with] discussions about legal matters."
After giving the above statement, Dershowitz reiterated how he didn't know any specifics of the Georgia investigation.
"So, we'll wait and see what kind of evidence [investigators] have, and if they try to break the lawyer-client privilege," says Dershowitz, who was part of President Trump's defense team during his 2021 impeachment trial.
That prior connection, however, did embolden Dershowitz to take a shot at David Carter, the California judge who speculated in March that Trump and lawyer John Eastman might have been planning a crime, relative to the Jan. 6, 2021 unrest at the Capitol.
That ruling prompted Dershowitz to say that Carter "had no evidence at all" with his presumption of a crime plot.
In the Georgia case, there are plenty of media reports about Trump allegedly telling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that he needed to "find" 11,780 lingering votes to carry that state in the 2020 presidential election.
But that doesn't necessarily cover the full context of the Trump-Raffensperger phone conversation, which took place on Jan. 2, 2021.
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