In an interview with Newsmax on Saturday, constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz said that it would be “illegal” to bar former President Donald Trump from ever holding office again.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump last week, claiming that he incited an insurrection against the U.S. government when he directed his supporters to storm the Capitol building in order to stop the certification of Electoral College votes in the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats are expected to send their impeachment articles to the Senate next week and even though they most likely won’t have the votes to convict Trump, they could — at least in theory — pass a measure barring him from launching a comeback campaign ahead of the 2024 election.
Dershowitz described this initiative as “an attempt to simply control the electoral process in 2024” and clarified that he will not be involved in the trial because it is nothing but “political theater” and he is “neither a politician nor an actor.”
The lawyer argued that Democrats have no legal ground to stand on and suggested that their attempts to bar Trump from seeking the White House in four years are blatantly unconstitutional.
“It’s illegal. The Constitution provides for impeachment as an extraordinary remedy only to remove somebody from office… But you can’t impeachment somebody simply to disqualify them, because if you could, the party in power could simply impeach any potential candidate in the future and determine who they are running against.”
Dershowitz also pointed out that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts would not even be required to preside over the trial. He explained that this is because Trump is no longer in the White House, which means that Vice President Kamala Harris would act as the presiding officer.
This, too, shows that Democrats are engaged in “partisan, political pandering” and that their attempts to prevent Trump from running in the 2024 election are illegal and unconstitutional, he further claimed.
Dershowitz also argued convicting and barring Trump would only further divide the country.
“If [Harris] presides over a potential disqualification of her potential political opponent that will also divide the country even more than it’s divided today.”
Earlier this month, Dershowitz argued that taking action against Trump now that he is no longer president would be unconstitutional. He claimed that any such maneuver would set a dangerous precedent and allow Congress to abuse its powers in the future.
Some Democratic politicians have floated using the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to bar Trump from holding office again. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has expressed support for the idea, as have Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Tim Kaine and Chris Murphy.
