Even if there was quid pro quo with Ukraine on behalf of President Donald Trump, it is neither a crime nor an impeachable offense – even if it is a "political sin" – legal expert Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday during an appearance on Newsmax TV.
"I don't think it is at all relevant on the issue of impeachment," Dershowitz told "Newsmax Now" of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's testimony of concerns about Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's new president. "Even if you take the absolutely worse case scenario of quid pro quo, that's not a federal crime. It's not a crime at all, and it's not an impeachable offense.
"It very well might be a political sin, but we have to – under the Constitution – distinguish between political sins, federal crimes, and impeachable offenses.
"And this doesn't reach the level of an impeachable offense, even if everything the colonel said is absolutely accurate."
Dershowitz did issue a mea culpa for being silent during a Monday night Fox News allusion to Vindman being a double agent. Dershowitz sat silent on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle," when John Yoo, a Berkeley law professor and former Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, suggested Vindman participated in espionage.
"Certainly my silence should not have been interpreted as acceptance of any claim that he might be guilty of espionage, which I think is dead wrong," Dershowitz said. "I've always opposed criminalization of political differences. I wrote a book about it.
"And I'm strongly opposed to accusing an American patriot of espionage. I just want to publicly apologize to Col. Vindman for my silence."
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