Trump's $355 million judgment and 3-year ban from New York.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Alan Deshowitz. He is the leading constitutional lawyer in the world in the country, Harvard Law School Emeritus, served at Harvard Lafe School for over five decades. And one smart guy, I mean a friend, Professor Deshowitz, second term MAJORCA was impeached the other day, and the average American person doesn’t understand what it means. Can you

0:32 explain to the American people what the impeachment would do? I mean to me, I don’t understand it either. Does he stop getting paid?

0:44 Speaker 2 Nothing happens whatsoever. Impeachment is simply the first step toward removal. Being impeached is like being indicted. When you’re indicted, you’re not convicted. When you’re impeached, you’re not convicted. The process of impeachment is a twofold process. You’re impeached by the House and then you’re tried by the Senate. But in this case, everybody knows that the Senate won’t remove and

1:09 so impeachment is used as an end in and of itself, an embarrassment, a way of simply saying, we the House think you ought to be removed. We know you’ll never be removed. We’re not going to take away his salary. Yeah, there maybe a little asterisk by your name and a history book, but nothing will happen unless you are removed,

1:28 and we know you won’t be removed. So we’re using impeachment simply as a political tool to express to the world our dissatisfaction with the job you’re doing.

1:40 Speaker 1 Wouldn’t he even take the position I’m the Secretary of Homeland Security and I but the commander in chief tell me to do this.

1:52 Speaker 2 Well, that wouldn’t be a defense if the commander of chief told him to do something that was a high crime and misdemeanor. Say you know, they asked him to take a bribe, or they asked them to commit some kind of extortion conduct. It would never be an excuse to say, my commander in chief told me to do it.

2:10 But here, what you have is just a policy difference. You have the Democrats wanting to have a looser border, the Republicans wanting to have a tighter border. I think the Republicans are right about this, but they’re they’re they’re impeaching him because the Republicans don’t agree with the Democratic policy.

2:28 They can’t get to the president on this, so they’re going to his designated Cabinet member, the Secretary of Homeland Security. But they’re really what they’re doing is they’re attacking the policy of the administration. And that’s not what impeachment was intended.

2:41 Speaker 1 To do, understood, And to get a real impeachment, they would need what sixty six sixty seven percent of the Senate, Yeah.

2:54 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, and they’ll never get it. They we haven’t had a successful impeachment in our history. Was very close during right after the Lincoln administration, was very close with Andrew Johnson, but it didn’t make it, missed by one vote.

3:12 And then of course Clinton was impeached and it was not even a close vote. And then Trump was impeached. I was one of his lawyers. He was impeached twice, and there wasn’t even a close vote. Here. They don’t even intend to really move forward for a vote. They’re not going to devote any time or energy to this

3:28 because they know what the result is going to be. Even some Republicans will vote against impeachment because they realized that’s not the proper tactic here. What Congres should have done it simply issued a statement of condemnation saying we don’t agree with the secretary’s attitude. We think he’s not enforcing the law. We think he’s making Americans unsafe by

3:47 his border controls. We condemn him. They could have done that, but by using the impeachment provision, I think they abused the Constitution, as the Democrats did when they twice impeached President.

3:58 Speaker 1 Trump understood and so basically it’s it’s just public relations or letting the public know that they’re dissatisfied and nothing’s really going to happen and everything.

4:14 Speaker 2 It could be dangerous. It it’s dangerous because impeachment is very important if it’s used properly. Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in the Federalist Papers that the greatest danger of misuse of impeachment is if it’s used just for partisan purposes.

4:29 Who has the most votes? And look what happened here. They didn’t have enough votes. They missed by two and then they took a second vote, and the only reason they won is because one guy had positive for COVID and he couldn’t come a Democrat, and the other guy his plane had a malfunction and it was stuck in

4:48 Palm Beach and so he couldn’t vote. So just by a complete fortuity. They won by one vote, and so it’s very political and very partisan on both sides.

5:00 Speaker 1 Professor, I have to tell you, I wish to I wish to Washington was a little more civilized. I think both of us agree the same thing. Me too.

5:09 Speaker 2 That’s why I love your shows, because you’re so civilized. You bring both sides to bear common sense, and I love being on your shows.

5:18 Speaker 1 Thank you, we’d love having you. Is there anything on Sunday morning? Anything else you want to get off your chest?

5:24 Speaker 2 Yeah? I want to get off my chest. But I think the Biden administration is doing the wrong thing in relation to Israel. They should be encouraging Israel to finally defeat Hamas. You know, Biden said the right thing about Ukraine.

5:37 If the Russians win in Ukraine, they’ll go further, They’ll try to get more property. Why doesn’t he say the same thing about Hamas. If Amas wins, if they’re not defeated, it’s coming to a theater near you. They’re going to start attacking all over the world. So I wish that President Biden would be consistent with his policy toward Ukraine,

5:57 policy toward Israel, and strong support Israel’s legitimate effort to destroy Hamas after what it did to so many innocent people and how many hostages it took. So that’s my complaint of the week.

6:12 Speaker 1 Thank you so much, Professor Deshowitz, and we’ll catch up again

6:17 Speaker 2 Real soon, I hope, so thank you.