On "Forbes Newsroom," attorney Alan Dershowitz gave his blunt take on former President Trump's NYC civil fraud trial, the intentions of New York Attorney General Letitia James, and more.
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00:00 Hi, everybody.
00:03 I'm Diane Brady.
00:04 I'm here with Alan Dershowitz, noted trial lawyer, Harvard professor emeritus, author
00:10 of Get Trump, which is the perfect background, Alan, I think, to talk about Trump and this
00:17 civil fraud trial.
00:20 What do you make of it so far?
00:22 Well, I named my book after this case.
00:25 That is, it was Letitia James who campaigned on the promise to get Trump.
00:31 And this is simply a manifestation of keeping that promise.
00:35 She has to get Trump or she won't get reelected.
00:39 She could have gone after any one of a thousand real estate moguls in New York and prove that
00:45 they had overestimated the value of some of their holdings.
00:48 It's very common.
00:49 Certainly, they, she could prove that they evaluated the holdings more than the estimates
00:55 for tax purposes, but they targeted Donald Trump.
00:58 They went after him only because of who he was.
01:01 You know, the Bible says to judges and prosecutors, do not recognize faces, do not ever make decisions
01:07 based on who the person was.
01:09 Is there anybody out there, anybody who believes that this case would have been brought if
01:14 Donald Trump were not the former president and the current leading candidate to run against
01:20 Joe Biden?
01:21 Of course not.
01:22 This is a selective prosecution and it's wrong.
01:26 Could you argue, as the New York attorney general has done, that the stakes are higher
01:30 in this case because this is a man running for president as opposed to any other real
01:34 estate developer in New York?
01:37 That's a serious mistake.
01:39 Let the public judge based on the information that's available.
01:43 You don't have selective prosecution.
01:45 We do in many countries.
01:47 You know, one of the dictators in South America said, for my friends, everything from my enemies,
01:53 the law, when you aim the law at any particular individual, the great justice, Robert Jackson,
01:59 once said he was the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg and the justice of the Supreme Court.
02:04 Any prosecutor rummaging through the state, the statute books and rummaging through the
02:09 records of any person can find enough to bring a charge against him.
02:14 So this empty claim that no one is above the law, but no one is below the law, the law
02:19 has to be applied equally to everybody, whether you're running for president or not.
02:23 In fact, the fact that you're running for president and that tens of millions of people
02:28 want to vote for you for president ought to be a reason for not bringing a case during
02:34 the presidential election campaign season.
02:37 You wait until after the election is over.
02:40 You don't try to influence the election by a partisan.
02:44 I remember all these people.
02:46 Letitia James ran as a Democrat.
02:49 Alvin Bragg ran as a Democrat.
02:51 The judge, as far as I know, is a Democrat.
02:54 He's been listed as a Democrat, certainly.
02:56 Yeah.
02:57 And the whole judicial system of New York is heavily dominated by Democrats and by anti-Trump
03:05 Republicans.
03:06 Remember, too, that some of the leaders in the Get Trump campaign are Republicans.
03:11 Now, I'm not a Trump supporter.
03:12 I'm going to vote against him.
03:14 I want to see the American people have the right to defeat him decisively in a real election
03:19 that he can't complain about.
03:21 And I don't think that we're seeing that now, because we're seeing so much influence being
03:26 put on the election that if Trump loses, he's going to continue to campaign and complain
03:32 and say, look, they indicted me four times.
03:35 They took all my money away.
03:37 They tied me up in court.
03:40 And that's why I lost the election.
03:42 I want this to be a clean, fair, open election which he loses on the merits.
03:48 In terms of the trial itself right now, one thing that is surprising to some people is
03:53 that he has shown up.
03:55 Are you surprised by that?
03:56 Would you have advised him to show up, given the conditions under which this trial is taking
04:00 place?
04:01 I think it's wise for him to show up.
04:02 The question is, should he take the stand?
04:05 It's not going to influence the outcome of the case.
04:07 The judge has already made up his mind, already gave some judgment based on some statements
04:15 about the value of property, particularly Mar-a-Lago.
04:18 So his testimony won't help him.
04:21 On the other hand, if he does testify, it might be a perjury trap.
04:24 And if he says anything that Letitia James or Alvin Bragg think is not true, they can
04:30 then up the stakes and go after him for perjury.
04:34 So it's very possible he will sit there and growl and let his views be known through his
04:39 facial gestures, but that he may not take the stand.
04:43 He would have to plead the Fifth in order not to take the stand if he's called by the
04:47 prosecution.
04:49 He can plead the Fifth.
04:51 He can say, I refuse to answer these questions in a civil case, 'cause they may incriminate
04:55 me in a potential criminal case.
04:57 He can say that.
04:58 And that can't be used against him in the criminal case, but it can be used against
05:02 him in the civil case.
05:04 So there are reasons for not taking the Fifth Amendment.
05:07 There are reasons for taking the Fifth Amendment.
05:10 He may have to make the decision himself whether to take the stand, because the prosecution
05:16 may or may not call him.
05:17 If they don't call him, then it's his decision to take the stand.
05:19 And if he takes the stand, he essentially waives his Fifth Amendment privilege.
05:24 One of the things that's been surprising is how bombastic the approach has been.
05:29 And again, this has not been televised, so this is all based on what has been reported.
05:34 But the opening remarks from his lawyers have very much been in line with his rhetoric,
05:40 which essentially is attacking this as a political trial.
05:45 Is that a wise strategy?
05:46 I mean, as you said, to some extent, it's a fait accompli.
05:50 There's been a summary judgment.
05:51 On the other hand, you would think that being angry and bombastic in court is rarely a winning
05:58 strategy.
05:59 Well, if he thinks he has a chance of winning, then it's not a good winning strategy.
06:04 But if he knows he's going to lose, then he's really playing to his political base and continuing
06:11 to make the arguments he's made before.
06:13 Now, this judge has already sanctioned the two of these lawyers for repeating an argument
06:18 he rejected.
06:19 Lawyers should repeat arguments that are rejected.
06:22 If they don't repeat them, often they waive them.
06:24 So this judge going after the lawyers has tried to intimidate them, and I hope the lawyers
06:29 won't be intimidated.
06:30 There's a project out there called the 65 Project, consisting of hard left lawyers who
06:35 are bringing bar charges against anybody associated with Donald Trump.
06:40 When I complained to this group and said that I would defend anybody who they brought charges
06:44 against, what do you think they did?
06:45 They brought bar charges against me.
06:47 And so they're going after every lawyer who has any association with Trump.
06:52 I have no current association with Trump.
06:53 I'm not his lawyer, but I was his lawyer in front of the United States Senate.
06:57 And so the reward for that is having a bar charge filed against me.
07:01 I have the resources to fight back.
07:03 But the 65 Project said, let's go after weak lawyers, poor lawyers, lawyers in small areas,
07:09 lawyers who don't have the resources to fight back and intimidate them and make sure that
07:13 they don't associate themselves with Trump.
07:15 That is McCarthyism, pure and simple.
07:18 And I'm going to fight back against that, even if it means bar charges against me.
07:23 And I think there'll be bar charges against these lawyers as well, because this judge
07:27 has made it a policy to sanction them for simply repeating arguments that he doesn't
07:33 like.
07:34 You know, are you surprised that they didn't ask for a jury trial, given that this is a
07:39 man who does play well to the crowd?
07:42 It wouldn't have made much of a difference, because the judge granted summary judgment
07:45 that would have taken the main issues away from the jury anyway.
07:48 I don't understand why they didn't ask for a jury trial.
07:52 New York law is a little vague on all of those issues as to cases like this.
07:58 But in general, it's always better to have a jury than a judge when the judge is so inclined
08:04 against you, as this one obviously is.
08:07 Do you think there's much recourse if given the nature of this particular law, which seems
08:12 to be very specific, that if he is if his license essentially to operate in New York
08:18 and that of his sons is taken away, what are the odds of an appeal being successful?
08:24 Well, I think there's a chance that they could be successful in the federal court.
08:29 This is, after all, a taking.
08:30 We have due process.
08:32 This is taking property away from him based on what seemed to me to be speculative assumptions.
08:44 So I think he will appeal.
08:47 Will he get a fair appeal in front of the appellate division or the New York Court of
08:50 Appeals?
08:51 That remains to be seen.
08:53 I think it's more likely that he'd get a fair shot at the appellate level than at the trial
08:57 level.
08:59 Have you encountered any other cases?
09:00 I mean, I think to me, just my vague coverage of New York real estate, it's very common
09:05 to want to look beautiful to your lenders and pretty poor and miserable to the IRS or
09:11 anybody trying to take tax from you.
09:15 That dichotomy is something that's very common.
09:17 Obviously, the size of the dichotomy here is pretty big in terms of the gap of what
09:23 was stated one place or assessed and what was then stated to the lenders.
09:30 Have there been other cases like this or is this unique?
09:34 I don't think there's ever been a case quite like this.
09:37 The Mar-a-Lago case puts it in perspective.
09:41 The judge implied, he talked around it and he cited the assessments that were done by
09:50 Palm Beach assessors of $18 to $27.5 million.
09:57 I think you and I should pool our money and buy it for-
10:00 For Mar-a-Lago?
10:01 And sell it the next day for 20 times that amount.
10:06 I mean, it's an absurd figure even to mention in an opinion.
10:11 Nobody would take that seriously.
10:14 It's obviously worth hundreds of millions of dollars, not $27 million.
10:20 Now, it may be assessed at $27 million, but I've also offered to buy the judge's own personal
10:28 home in New York for what it's assessed at for tax purposes.
10:33 Nobody sells based on the tax assessment.
10:37 And so that's why banks hire at extraordinary expenses to them some of the best real estate
10:44 assessors and accountants to do their own due diligence.
10:49 Nobody counted or relied on this, which is the argument that his lawyers tried to make
10:53 and were rebuked for.
10:55 Nobody was hurt here.
10:57 There was no intent to hurt anybody.
10:59 There's no victim here.
11:01 And generally the state attorney general would be better advised to go after and protect
11:07 real victims.
11:08 Why is the state attorney general protecting large banks that have the ability to protect
11:12 themselves?
11:13 They're the last people that need the protection of the attorney general of New York.
11:17 So this is purely 100 percent political and partisan.
11:23 And let's step back to the 30,000 foot view a second, Alan, because this is obviously
11:28 one of several cases.
11:30 I believe it's 91 charges that the former president's facing.
11:35 What's on your radar?
11:36 I mean, how does this really impact what else he is facing?
11:40 I don't know if he's likely to show up for those to TBD, I suppose.
11:45 But what are you thinking about the overall landscape right now in terms of the legal
11:50 challenges that Trump is facing?
11:52 Well, I hate to be advertising myself, but in my book, Trump, I go through each of the
11:57 cases.
11:58 In fact, I go through this civil case as well.
12:02 And I predict I predicted each of these cases, that each of them would be brought.
12:06 Now he has to appear at criminal cases.
12:09 He has no choice there.
12:10 In the civil cases, he does have a choice.
12:13 He's chosen to show up at least if he shows up in a continuing way.
12:19 But the criminal cases, he has to show up and he has to even show up and get on a plane
12:24 to pronounce the two words not guilty.
12:27 So they're using this as a way to keep him off the campaign trail.
12:31 And as I said, I want a fair and open campaign so that when he loses, if he loses, he has
12:38 no complaint.
12:39 He can only say the American public decided.
12:43 But that's not the way this is going.
12:45 I think there will be convictions.
12:47 I predicted in Get Trump, there will be convictions and there will be reversals of the convictions.
12:52 But the reversals will occur after the election.
12:55 And that's the goal.
12:57 That's the tactic being used by the Get Trump posse.
13:01 Damn and dirty convictions based on absurd, absurd indictments like the New York one that
13:08 Alexander Hamilton could have gone to jail for, for not reporting the payment of hush
13:13 money.
13:14 Who's ever paid hush money knowing that they have to?
13:15 The Alvin Bragg one, yeah.
13:18 That is an absurd case.
13:20 But he may get convicted because 75 percent of the jury pool will have voted against him
13:24 with the District of Columbia, where 90 something percent of the jury pool will have voted against
13:29 him.
13:30 So there is a likelihood of convictions in a verdicts like this one in this civil case,
13:34 the summary judgment, but also a likelihood that some of these will be reversed on appeal.
13:39 But the reversals will occur only after the election.
13:42 And therefore, the tactic will have succeeded in having to make sure that the convictions
13:48 occur before the election.
13:49 Now, in terms of getting him the nomination, it's helping him get the nomination, not hurting
13:53 him.
13:54 But in terms of the general election, it might very well hurt him to have some convictions.
13:59 Much more to be discussed, and I look forward to discussing it with you.
14:02 So thanks, as always, for joining us, Alan.
14:06 My pleasure.
14:07 Thank you.
14:07 [END]