Famed Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz sounded off on the situation regarding classified documents found over the past couple of months in the possession of then-former Vice President Joe Biden, as it related to a potential indictment of former President Donald Trump by the Justice Department over a similar situation.
Trump, you may recall, had his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida raided by dozens of FBI agents in early August, an unprecedented move against a former president despite the fact that he had been in contact with the administration regarding the care and custody of the documents for months beforehand. Not only that, but Trump claims he declassified them before he left the Oval Office, something Biden did not have the authority to do as VP.
All said the discovery of classified docs in Biden’s possession leads Dershowitz to conclude it isn’t very likely that Trump will be indicted at this point, calling the former president the “big winner” in all of this.
“If you have two people running for president against each other, both of whom have mishandled classified material, the idea of prosecuting the one who is running against the incumbent and not going after the one who is the incumbent wouldn’t pass the neutral principles test,” he told Newsmax earlier this week.
“Even if there was any possibility that Trump could have previously been indicted for the mishandling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago, that has gone out the window completely today,” he continued. “This will make it harder for Garland to accept a prosecution of Donald Trump on that charge.
“It will open him up to a double standard. In the end, the Attorney General makes the decision to prosecute or not. But I think the Mar-a-Lago thing has been essentially trumped by the disclosures involving Biden,” he added. “To go after Trump has to pass the Clinton-Berger test, and now the Clinton-Berger-Biden test.”
He referenced Samuel “Sandy” Berger, who served as then-President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser during Clinton’s second term. Berger was busted in 2004 stealing classified documents from the National Archives. After pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge, he was fined $50,000, sentenced to two years probation and stripped of his security clearance for three years.
Although Dershowitz is certain “there will not be a criminal prosecution against Donald Trump” for allegedly mishandling classified material, he did warn that indictments related to Trump’s alleged involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot might still happen.
“But I think the Mar-a-Lago thing has been essentially … trumped by the disclosures involving Biden,” Dershowitz noted again, adding that he doesn’t believe either Trump or Biden had any intent to endanger national security.
