‘Come On, Alan!’ Dershowitz, CNN’s Toobin Clash Over Articles of Impeachment

Alan Dershowitz and Jeffrey Toobin clashed tonight over impeachment, following reporting this week that President Donald Trump is considering adding Dershowitz to his legal team.

CNN’s John Berman tonight asked Dershowitz about new reporting that he’s “informally advising” the Trump legal team. Dershowitz declined to comment specifically but said his argument to POTUS is he should focus “on the inadequacies of the two charges” against him.

He argued there’s high criteria for impeachable offenses and Democrats “can’t interpret ‘misdemeanor’ to mean pretty much exactly what the Framers rejected at the Constitutional Convention,” saying they’re “trying to make it up as they go along.”

Toobin argued that this is about offenses that “only a president can commit” because “you or I can lie under oath, we can rob a bank, but we cannot withhold money from Ukraine in return for political help in our campaign — the only person who can do that, who can violate his oath and abuse power is the president.”

As they went back and forth, Toobin said what Trump did is “precisely an abuse of power.” Dershowitz responded by saying, “I can name you 20 presidents that have abused power under those criteria. President Kennedy going after people through the IRS… Roosevelt confining 110,000 Japanese Americans.”

Toobin said the obstruction issue and the “blanket refusal” from the White House is serious enough to warrant obstruction of Congress being an article of impeachment. He added, “Come on, Alan!”

“I do that every day when I represent people,” Dershowitz responded. “What I say to prosecutors is I’m not giving you one bit of evidence, I’m not cooperating, I’m not allowing my person to come in., the burden is on you. You have to prove your case. And I don’t obstruct justice by doing that.”

“Your clients take the fifth. There’s separation of powers between executive branches of government. It’s an entirely different scenario,” Toobin said.

“It’s much more powerful because the separation of powers is in the body of the Constitution itself, not in the amending process. The separation of powers crucially allowed the head of the executive branch to challenge every legislative action and leave it to the courts to decide,” Dershowitz said.

Toobin ended the segment by remarking, “I’m looking forward to Alan defending the president on the floor of the Senate. Not exactly what I expected in your criminal law class that that’s how you would culminate your career, but hey.”

You can watch above, via CNN.