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Alan Dershowitz and Mark Judge on the DC Trump trial — 30 Comments

1. Dershowitz is a very smart man, and his allegiance to the Democrats is puzzling – unless you suspect, as I do, that his public stance of supporting Democrats is one he retains because it makes his positions more convincing. If he goes over to The Dark Side, he would be utterly dismissed by the Democrats instead of mostly dismissed.

   It could be that he supports some idea of a hypothetical old school, sane, generic, middle-of-the-road Democrat candidate, a creature that doesn’t really exists in the wild anymore and hasn’t since probably the 1990s. I hear the San Diego zoo has a pair in captivity but so far they’ve refused to breed.

2. Note the photo of Kafka in the background…(perched like an impish guardian angel over his right shoulder?)…
   …which might just suggest that Dersh KNOWS……of course, it’s always possible he just likes the photograph…and/or the giant it represents…

   File under: Der Process…

3. But they have to save our democracy from Trump, even if they have to destroy democracy to do it.

4. These ridiculous trial dates only emphasize the fact that all of these indictments have only one purpose — to make sure that Donald Trump is never allowed to be President again. It is not possible now for there to be a free and fair 2024 presidential election. The sad fact is that almost all Democrats and quite a few Republicans are perfectly fine with throwing the country’s Constitution away as long as it gets rid of Trump. There really is no coming back from this. No matter what happens, trust in our country’s justice system has been destroyed, perhaps beyond repair.

5. “Dershowitz is a very smart man, and his allegiance to the Democrats is puzzling”

   I disagree. If his public positions over the last year or so, not defending POTUS Trump but at least defending the institutions of the Republic, are genuine and he STILL advocates for those who are doing the most damage to the Republic to be elected to highest office, it make me think he’s disingenuous at best or worth being ignored…or worse maybe? He’s so far beyond “puzzling” as to have ventured into the “ridiculous” lane.

   I’ve reached a point of Trump-fatigue (I had about the time he handed his administration over to the frauds Fauci & Birx & never built the rest of the wall). I pray for a strong candidate that isn’t corrupted to take the reins from him…but I reject anyone who says the Ds just need another chance to get governance right because that way has led us to here & here looks pretty bleak…and likely will lead to lots of blood in the streets.

   This isn’t a battle in the marketplace of ideas any more.
   We are at Deuteronomy 30:15-20 territory. Life & death are on the table.

   And to alleged conservatives…
   https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/what-exactly-are-conservatives-conserving

6. And as for Mark “Even though I think Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 was reprehensible and know that he lost the 2020 election…” Judge…His 15 minutes of being Kavanaugh’s friend are bloody over. He’s milked that moment for more than a man should ever have.

7. John Guilfoyle:

   Did you read my explanation of Dershowitz’s stand on that?

   And yes, Judge is milking his 15 minures for all they’re worth. But he’s right about the Stasi part, and he knows from bitter personal experience.

8. Gregory Harper (5:36 pm) said:
   “There really is no coming back from this. No matter what happens, trust in our country’s justice system has been destroyed, perhaps beyond repair.”

   I offer a friendly amendment to that assertion. To wit,

   “Trust in our country’s justice system >>> by those of us who see plainly what we have come, based on eyes-wide-open observation, see plainly <<< has been destroyed, perhaps beyond repair” — very much beyond repair, says M J R.

   As for the remaining 45 percent to 55 percent [might anyone out there have a good estimate?], life goes on as usual, with the usual trust in legacy institutions unaffected.

9. Yes, Ray, I’m afraid that actually sums it up pretty well.

10. The left MSM isn’t clueless; it’s in collusion. But “even on the Right”?

    The Right has come unglued. It is indeed clueless, but has abandoned many of the principles it could have colluded over. It has no Lincoln to enforce the Union, just endlessly yearns for its turn at the trough. And truly has NR faded into a mouldy heap. Curious that Mr. Cooke hangs on, he still remembers some principles.

11. MJR:

    “Trust in our country’s justice system >>> by those of us who see plainly what we have come, based on eyes-wide-open observation, see plainly <<< has been destroyed, perhaps beyond repair” — very much beyond repair, says M J R.

    True enough. But when half the country has no trust in the justice system then it really can't be called a "justice" system anymore. It then devolves into whoever is in power makes all the rules.

12. Boss…I don’t mean to be cantankerous, let me go to an authority with whom you’re familiar…”Elijah stood in front of them and said, “How much longer will you waver, hobbling between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him! But if Baal is God, then follow him!” But the people were completely silent.”

    Mr Dershowitz needs to choose a side. Either he speaks with forked tongue and still gets invited to the cool kids’ parties or he tells the truth and the chips fall where they may.

    I’ve lost patience with the foot in each camp sorts of equivocation. Maybe it’s obvious 😉

13. I know you have to say certain shibboleths, like when edward whelan, strove to prove that judge was in the wrong, and blasey ford was correct,

    the journal pretends this situation is normal, so does commentary, if the standard was still around they would do the same, the examiner looks around and says more cowbell, I mean mitt romney,

14. I subscribed to NR for many years, and I must say that I honestly enjoyed their articles. There is some serious horsepower there, regardless of how ‘misguided’ they have become.

    I cancelled my subscription when they published an issue with all of the contributor’s names on the front cover as signatories to the ‘cancel Trump’ effort.

    Erronius

15. John Guilfoyle:

    I get your point, but I have a couple of things to add in defense of Dershowitz. The first is that it’s not about the cool parties for him; he’s made it very clear that he was ostracized the moment he defended Trump, and has continued to be ostracized.

    So, what is it about? I once saw an interview in which he explained that he thought he could be more effective as a kind of gadfly within the Democratic Party than from the outside. I think he believes that, and it might even be at least a little bit true. Also, he is 84 years old and has been a Democrat his whole life, and many of those years Democrats were far more reasonable and not so leftist, so perhaps he clings to that notion.

    He probably really does not like Trump, and yet he defended him in a very public way and even wrote a book that was very critical of the attempts to take him down. As a defense attorney, Dershowitz is very accustomed to defending people he doesn’t like, so that’s not hypocritical for him to do. He really does adhere to principle, which is very very rare. He is a courageous man.

16. “Dershowitz considers principles the most important thing of all, and if they are sacrificed in order to “get Trump,” then our nation has betrayed its own principles and is no better than a banana republic.

    Turning America into a Banana Republic is not the end state desired by the left, they have something much darker in mind. And they don’t care how many lives they have to ruin on the way to that end state.
    Given that reality, Dershowitz acting as a gadfly is an exercise in futility.

17. In a different video, he does explicitly want to vote for Biden.

    https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2023/08/19/dershowitz-dump-weiss-and-get-a-properly-independent-special-counsel-for-biden-inc-corruption-probe-n572256

18. In the paper era, once you had a copy of National Review in your hand, you could leaf through it and something might catch your eye. It was one of the few conservative news outlets, so you might get some important information from NR that you couldn’t get anywhere else. Today, I look online and see if there are any interesting articles. There usually aren’t, and by the time the magazine comes out it’s all old news, so I don’t bother with the magazine.
    ______

    Is there really an end state or an end game to all this? I think it’s more about staying in power. For the Democrats, trying every day to stay in power results in the same behavior that wanting permanent or absolute power would cause. Biden’s spending isn’t so much about “solving problems” as it is about directing money to organizations that support his party. DEI is about distributing goodies to the party’s supporters. The Green New Deal is as much about control as it is about climate change.

19. Serendip of the Day:

    Mark Judge links to a 2020 post he wrote about his employment situation during COVID. In it, he makes a reference that fits with today’s Open Post
    (the title is lifted from The Inferno, and there is a passing reference to “therapy,” so all-in-all a very literary day today).

    https://www.splicetoday.com/consume/satan-s-anus-dishwashing-through-the-pandemic

    That night a friend called, and when he heard I was a dishwasher, he said found my situation “poignant.” I’d been a book author, a contributor to places like The Washington Post and The New York Times, and the target of an explosive and well-publicized 2018 political hit. My friend reminded me of something I hadn’t though about since my time at Catholic University in the 1980s. At the end of the Inferno, Dante and Virgil can only escape hell by climbing up Satan’s asshole. “You’re stuck in Satan’s anus,” he said. “You just gotta keep climbing.”

    Yes, the only way through it is through it. And the crisis, if we’re lucky, will remind us how far we as human souls have become separated from our true selves and bodies. “On a collective level,” Hollis writes in Living Between Worlds, “our culture’s treatment plans for the absence of a personal, intimate relationship with the gods are materialism, hedonism, narcissism and nationalism, as well as a coursing nostalgia for a world that never really existed.

    Our contemporary Odysseys are redirected to the Apple Store, the palliative pharmacy, or forays along the River Amazon Prime. Guided by Google, whereby all things are knowable, we wonder why we are so absent-spirited, so lost, and so adrift. We may say that these secular surrogates, these ‘isms,’ constitute our values, our de facto religions, those in which we most invest our energies. But we have to ask the obvious question, ‘How well are they working for us?’”

    Not well.

20. GB nails it…
    Given the “end game” today’s Left intends for anyone “not them,” “Dershowitz acting as a gadfly is an exercise in futility.” or worse…

    And…if he’s really been shunned by all the folks he hopes to win over…he’s just “striving after the wind.”

    I put his courage in the same pot I do Judge’s obligatory “Trump really lost. He really really lost, & J6 was the worst ever!” and everyone who tries to tell me “There’s some fine agents in the FBI.” Once all that’s in the pot…pull the chain.

21. Let’s assume at least for sake of argument that Dershowitz is sincere. He’s a lib Dem and votes that way but is troubled by the rule of law issues with lawfare and censorship. That puts him in company more or less with Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald and Bari Weiss.

    That’s nice that they speak out on this but are they really moving the needle? I doubt it. Do any Dem officeholders support that, or more importantly any significant number of our “nice, reasonable” lib friends? Not that I can see. For that matter how many *Republican* politicians are going to the mat on this?

22. As far as I’m concerned, Judge has paid his dues and then some.
    He was drawn and quartered during the Kavanaugh hearings—or rather the Kavanaugh Inquisition and Auto Da Fe—and for what? Because he was a friend of Kavanaugh’s. Because he was available to be destroyed. Because he was useful to them. Because THEY COULD try to destroy him. (And did try…but he persevered.)
    The Democrats and their paid shills and helots are no better than a Cat 5 hurricane: destructive and indiscriminate.
    (Unlike the hurricane, though, they pretend they’re beneficial. Helpful. Compassionate. Patriotic. Law-abiding. Indispensable.)
    I think Judge is wrong about the 2020 elections.
    That’s OK. People are allowed to be wrong. At least some people.
    He’s not lying about it, though. He’s simply—from my POV—too willing to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt (a benefit of the doubt they in no way deserve).
    His problem, I guess.
    All of our problems…
    As I said, he’s paid his dues.
    And he’s doing his best…
    (Which is my “go-to” rationalization/cop-out…I guess, but there ya’ go…)

23. It is worth remembering that criminal defense and prosecution are two distinct tribes of lawyers, who often have very different views on criminal matters and especially criminal procedure.

    Dershowitz is saying a lot of things right now that Trump supporters want to hear. He is also, however, a card-carryng member of the criminal defense tribe, and principled enough that he would be saying these things about any defendant. Traditionally, the criminal defense tribe was more the domain of the left and prosecution tribe more the domain of the right, which is why, I think, there are so many people in the right-of-center legal voices saying things that Trump supporters would prefer not to hear. (e.g., Chris Christie, Andy McCarthy, etc.)

    There are elements of truth in the perspectives of both the criminal defense tribe and the prosecution tribe, but I don’t think that either side has things completely right.

    That’s also why I think it is folly to try to attribute political motivations to Dershowitz. I strongly suspect that his affiliation with the criminal defense tribe is stronger than his political affiliation with the left – but that doesn’t mean he belongs on the political right.

24. Except that…he’s not saying these things because he’s Right OR Left OR Green OR Blue Or Yellow. Or Mineral. Or Vegetable.
    He’s saying these things because he’s a Constitutionalist who UNDERSTANDS how destructive the Democratic Party antics are for the rule of law and for the country.
    Andrew McCarthy, for some reason, seems to have bought into the Democratic Party propaganda that Trump is a criminal.
    That is, he’s bought into a Compulsively Prevaricating, Criminal Entity’s propaganda that Trump is a criminal.
    (Of course, one MIGHT claim that even a Compulsively Prevaricating Criminal Entity is right some of the time…though in the case of the Democratic Party—and its pit-bull, scorched-earth policies of Personal, Social, Municipal, State and National Destruction, and CHARACTER ASSASSINATION, and weaponizing ALL the powers at its disposal to effect those policies—I would beg to differ….
    OMMV, of course…)

25. Re: Judge

    I recently had an argument with my husband about the 2020 elections. He is a conservative. He despises Brandon. But he still believes there wasn’t enough fraud in the 2020 elections such that Trump could’ve won. Why? Because he still reads “mainstream media” and assumes that because Trump’s suits were dismissed, that there was no “there, there.”

    I have pointed out the statistical anomalies that make fraud probable. I can’t find the exact numbers, however, as they are buried in days / week/s months of other stories on “election fraud” on the internet, such that an internet search is fruitless. I have also pointed out that massive fraud doesn’t need some vast organized group of conspirators. It just needs a few dedicated people in the right places at the right time, and a confluence of things that make it easier: Massive mail-in ballots and the ability to ballot harvesting.

    I have pointed out that there were various reasons that the suits were dismissed, none of which had anything to do with actual fraud.

    My husband was on the fraud train shortly after it happened, but now, I think it is either just easier for him to believe there wasn’t significant fraud, or it’s been repeated so often, he just has come to believe it.

    I think it comes down to: If people keep telling you the sky is green often enough, at some point, you look up and say, “Huh. I guess it really is green.”

    Maybe that is where Mike Judge is now. Maybe he is not a dedicated reader of Ace of Spades HQ, or the New Neo. Maybe he thinks National review is still “conservative.”

26. mccarthy has been a fool since the plame game, which is when I started watching these lawfare games, because his peeps the sdny where involved, I’m tired of pretending that things that aren’t happening did, and the converse, didn’t

27. so today’s hrumpf in panem, is about proud boys leader, tarrio, who they couldn’t attack because hes a black Hispanic, he never even made to the Capitol, they got him on some bogus charge, then they tagged the seditious conspiracy ‘thought crime’

28. https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1696846246411985058

29. @ Lee Also (8:42 AM): I watched the entire three day symposium by Mike Lindell two years ago. It did not produce what Mike promised, and generally was a disorganized mess.

    But there were several highly coherent and persuasive presentations based on statistics and mathematical analysis. I am not talking about the bellwether county anomaly, which (as with several other similar anecdotal type oddities) is persuasive in itself.

    The several entirely disparate statistical analyses (IMO) were irrefutable on their face. They proved that fraudulent manipulation took place with results beyond the official winning numbers. I cannot see how anything more would be required.

    It is my impression that other such mathematical proofs have been made elsewhere, some using sophisticated but entirely accepted forensic methods to prove fraudulent manipulation beyond the required number of deciding votes.

    And yet the statistical or mathematical approach seems never to be discussed or raised in a broad public venue.

30. Lee Also: “But he [my husband] still believes there wasn’t enough fraud in the 2020 elections such that Trump could’ve won. ”

    Does he understand that a shift of fewer than 40,000 votes in three states (AZ, GA, WI) would have thrown the election into the House where Trump probably would have won? It did not require massive ballot harvesting or computer tampering, just a little old-fashioned finagling. Comparable to the margins in TX and IL that brought the 1960 election into question.

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