Accusations emanating from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal railroaded civil liberties legal expert Alan Dershowitz from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment.
"Just because there is an accusation out there, the decision was made not to use me," Dershowitz, who testified against former President Bill Clinton's impeachment before Congress, told Sunday's "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y. "Also, because the Republicans are only given one witness. If they had been given two witnesses, probably I would've been used along with Turley. Jonathan Turley did a good job."
Dershowitz told host John Catsimatidis the other academics on the panel failed in their duty, proving merely to provide partisan opinions against President Donald Trump instead of actual constitutional grounds, which they were tasked to do.
"I wish they had me in cross-examination," Dershowitz added. "That was a big failing of that hearing. Nobody got cross examined. A good lawyer could've taken these academics apart. I could've pressed them very hard on whether they would say the same thing if it were Hillary Clinton who were president – if she were being impeached – if the shoe were on the other foot.
"But there was no cross examination. And these folks were just not challenged in their views, so they could say anything they wanted."
And what the academics were saying might just ultimately make any impeachment "void," because Congress cannot act outside the parameters of the Constitution, which is what they were advocating for, Dershowitz said.
"Academics from Harvard, and Stanford, and other places can't just amend the Constitution because they don't like who the president is," he added.
"If you want to amend the Constitution, that's more appropriate than just trying to interpret words like high crimes and misdemeanors to include anything you want."
Dershowitz is author of many legal books, including his latest "Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo."