ALAN DERSHOWITZ’s Verdict on Donald Trump’s Indictment and the ‘Worst Sentence He Ever Spoken’

The sensational federal indictment of Donald Trump has stunned one of the former president’s most famous supporters, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.

Trump faces 31 counts over allegations he illegally stored top secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago country club. Stunning details of Trump’s charges were laid out Friday — and he faces a long prison sentence if convicted.

Dershowitz describes himself as a liberal Democrat — and has previously spoken out against what he sees as Trump’s unfair persecution.

But in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, he said the new charges against Trump are exceptionally serious — and that the former president’s usual strategy of going on the offensive could land him in even bigger trouble.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

DailyMail.com: How do you rate the strength of the federal indictment against Donald Trump?

Dershowitz: This indictment is stronger than I expected in one way and in one way only.

It contains the text of a conversation between former President Trump and a writer in which Trump says: Look, I know that these documents that I have in my hand are classified. I could have downgraded them. Not me. Here, I’m going to show them to you to prove my point.

That seems to be evidence that there were at least some documents that President Trump knew were not unclassified. He owned them.

Whether the documents were actually given to an unauthorized person to read or simply flashed before his eyes as part of typical Trump bravado, the administration will have to prove.

DailyMail.com: Do you think Donald Trump will go to jail?

dershowitz: I would think he probably wouldn’t go to jail, but I would warn him to make sure he doesn’t say anything more. That increases those chances.

Someone I know once gave him a fish that was caught and stuffed and put on a plaque. And the plaque said, “If only I had kept my mouth shut, I’d still be swimming.”

President Trump will have to look in the mirror and say, “Why did I let myself be recorded in a conversation with a writer when I knew I was being recorded?”

Trump clearly has a history and a reputation for talking too much and getting himself into trouble. This is perhaps the worst sentence he has ever handed down in terms of protecting himself from criminal prosecution.

It’s the only page in the indictment that I think would stand up to scrutiny.

DailyMail.com: Do you reject the allegations of obstruction of justice?

dershowitz: The charges of obstruction are extremely weak – moving boxes and suggesting certain things to someone. Those are cases that would never have been brought if President Trump had not lined up as the leading candidate against the incumbent.

But what’s so strong about that one recorded phone call is that it doesn’t rely on the credibility of witnesses. It stands for itself.

And so, if I were Donald Trump, I’d kind of lose sleep over that one page and the absurdity of why he had to say things like that when he knew they were being recorded.

DailyMail.com: There is a co-conspirator named in this case, Donald Trump’s valet and personal assistant in the White House, Waltine Nauta. Analysts say the indictment is designed to convince him to betray Trump and testify against him. How does that affect Trump’s case?

dershowitz: Turned witnesses are not the best witnesses because good lawyers can question them and reveal to the jury their motivation to save themselves.

We know that prosecutors can pressure turned witnesses not only to sing, but sometimes to compose lyrics and music that the witness thinks the prosecution wants to hear.

That’s why the tape is so important. You don’t need a turned witness to testify to the conversation that took place with the writer.

DailyMail.com: The indictment exposes an alleged conspiracy to hide classified documents from the federal government. Does that make the allegations of obstruction any more serious?

dershowitz: If it can be proven that the intent was to hide classified documents to make sure the federal government never got their hands on them, that could be serious. But the fact that Trump didn’t destroy them would undermine that.

It may have been a plan to prevent the documents from being subject to a search warrant. And that would raise an interesting question.

Let’s say a lawyer says, look, you get a search warrant and they’re only going to search your private offices. Could the attorney recommend moving the boxes to another area, keeping them, but moving them to another area so that the search warrant doesn’t cover it? Would that be an obstruction of justice?

Maybe. But it’s not that clear.

The easy cases for obstruction of justice are when evidence is destroyed. And there have been many such cases – Richard Nixon, of course. He also bribed witnesses.

The Nixon case is the standard for former presidents, current presidents, presidential candidates. And I don’t think that standard has been met by this charge.

DailyMail.com: How much weight do you place on Trump’s defense that he had the ability to disclose information?

dershowitz: His claim of release is strong because the burden of proof is likely on the government. They must prove that he has not been declassified. He does not have to prove that he has been downgraded.

That will still come up because there are materials that are subject to the defense that they have been released.

I really think the prosecution made a tactical blunder by charging too much, by including too many questionable things.

If I had been a prosecutor, I would have had a much shorter indictment, focused on that one conversation, maybe some conversations with the lawyers.

But I wouldn’t have included 32 counts under the Espionage Act. I think that distracts jurors from the central point.

I’ve seen many cases lost by prosecutors because they charged too much and presented too much evidence that failed to convince the jury.

And the jury said to itself, oh, my God, if they intend to go after him on these weak charges, how can we trust them on the strong charges?

What Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith did was very clever, to try to differentiate this case from the cases involving Hillary Clinton, President Biden and Vice President Pence, he has indicted Trump, not according to the statutes that people have usually sued, namely negligence or gross negligence in the handling of classified material.

Smith sued Trump under a much higher statute, one that requires willfulness. It will be harder to prove.

But it will differentiate the Trump case from the Biden case and from the Hillary Clinton case, at least as far as the allegations are concerned.

Now the facts may not be that different between Hillary Clinton and President Trump, but the allegations are different. And that’s obviously an attempt to say, look, this is not the same thing that happened with Clinton.

FBI Director James Comey said no one has ever been prosecuted for negligent handling of material in history. Of course, people have been prosecuted for deliberately passing on secret material.