Alan Dershowitz Explains Why He’s Representing Mike Lindell in Hardee’s Drive-Thru Phone Seizure Brouhaha
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Alan Dershowitz said he’s representing Mike Lindell because the Department of Justice “exceeded its authority” when it seized the My Pillow CEO’s phone while he was at a Hardee’s drive-thru in Minnesota this month.
Lindell said last week FBI agents approached him as he waited for food.
“Cars pulled up in front of us, to the side of us, and behind us and I said those are either bad guys or the FBI,” Lindell stated. “Well, it turns out they were the FBI.”
After the FBI demanded his phone, Lindell said he told them, “If I don’t give it to you, will you arrest me then?” He said he called his lawyer, who advised him to turn over his phone.
Lindell is an election-denier who attended a meeting at the White House in the waning days of the Donald Trump administration. Like Trump, the conspiracy theorist insisted the election had been stolen and “brainstormed” ways to keep Trump in power.
Dershowitz, who joined Law & Crime’s Sidebar podcast on Wednesday to discuss the case, gave a written explanation in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday as to why he’s representing Lindell.
“I disagree with My Pillow founder Mike Lindell about a lot of things, including his belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump,” the former Harvard law professor began. “I’m a liberal Democrat; he is a conservative Republican. Yet I am enthusiastically representing him in his lawsuit against the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation over the recent search and seizure of his telephone.”
Dershowitz said it’s important for everyone – including Democrats – “to resist unconstitutional efforts by Mr. Biden’s administration and supporters to abuse the law, particularly the criminal-justice system, against our political opponents.”
Republicans have accused President Joe Biden of “politicizing” the DOJ by pointing to its investigations into Trump’s role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, and more recently his possession of government documents at his Florida estate. Some of those materials are classified.
Dershowitz, who represented Trump at his first impeachment trial, stated:
I also believe the department exceeded its constitutional authority by seeking and executing a search warrant against Mr. Lindell’s telephone, which gives investigators access to his computer files and other private and business data. The Framers of the Constitution abhorred the British practice of issuing general warrants, which empowered the government to search entire homes and businesses. The seizure and search of a cellphone in today’s connected world is more of a general search than rummaging through a home. Your entire life is stored on electronic devices.
He went on to claim the search warrant served to Lindell “didn’t specify a protocol for separating the searchable from the private and privileged, thus leaving it to the discretion of Justice Department officials to make these constitutionally critical determinations.”
Dershowitz closed by lamenting that Trump supporters have had their rights infringed upon.
“[T]oday few Democratic lawyers will represent Trump Republicans whose constitutional rights have been violated,” he wrote. “This is a tragedy that endangers the neutrality of our Constitution and the legal profession. I will continue to defend the Constitution equally on behalf of Democrats and Republicans.”
