Wednesday night, when senators were finally free to ask questions about President Donald Trump’s impeachment, one of the president’s lawyer made a fascinating defense—and prompted the #DershowitzLogic meme.
Alan Dershowitz, who has represented such luminaries as O.J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein, said on the Senate floor that because a politician believes themselves getting elected is in the public interest, anything they do to get elected “is in the public interest.”
(Dershowitz’s argument starts at the 2:30 mark.)
His argument is that because Trump’s actions in Ukraine were part of his election efforts, they could not constitute any kind of wrongdoing.
In other words, Dershowitz said anything a president does to get himself elected cannot be improper.
People found the logic so bizarre that a Twitter hashtag was created called #dershowitzlogic. Hypotheticals floated about whether killing your opponent to ensure an electoral victory was just—as long as you believed it was in the public interest.
https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1222872365752672256
https://twitter.com/MadisonSiriusXM/status/1222864307224023040
Because I lost the election, It’s in the public interest that I have Congress arrested, suspend the constitution and declare myself emperor. #dershowitzlogic
— Steve Redmond (@sjredmond) January 30, 2020
His argument created such an online pushback that it made its way back up to Dershowitz, who decided to defend himself on Twitter. He claimed he was both misquoted and misrepresented, despite his words being quoted precisely.
“Taking advantage of the fact most of their viewers didn’t actually hear the senate Q and A, CNN, MSNBC and some other media willfully distorted my answers. More to Come … They characterized my argument as if I had said that if a president believes that his re-election was in the national interest, he can do anything. I said nothing like that, as anyone who actually heard what I said can attest,” Dershowitz wrote.
They characterized my argument as if I had said that if a president believes that his re-election was in the national interest, he can do anything. I said nothing like that, as anyone who actually heard what I said can attest.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 30, 2020
I did not say or imply that a candidate could do anything to reassure his reelection, only that seeking help in an election is not necessarily corrupt, citing the Lincoln and Obama examples. Critics have an obligation to respond to what I said, not to create straw men to attack.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 30, 2020
Over the course of 12 tweets, Dershowitz claimed that the argument he made was not what people heard.
“I did not say or imply that a candidate could do anything to reassure his reelection, only that seeking help in an election is not necessarily corrupt, citing the Lincoln and Obama examples,” he wrote. “Critics have an obligation to respond to what I said, not to create straw men to attack.”
But numerous people pointed out that was exactly what he said.
https://twitter.com/awelab1956/status/1222912562309632001
JFC IT’S EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID.
— Jennifer Gracen (@jennifergracen) January 30, 2020
It was recorded. This guy has no bottom. He is downright Orwellian. https://t.co/mUuu8O29yv
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