The former legal counsel for Al Gore who challenged – and lost – the presidential election results in 2000 says Gore’s team did “the same thing” as what a Georgia prosecutor is claiming Trump committed as a crime.
Donald Trump is facing a fourth indictment, this time from Fulton County, Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, involving allegations that Trump sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, speaking to Fox News Digital, criticized the pending indictment, calling Trump’s actions “very similar” to that of Al Gore’s legal strategy in the Bush v. Gore case that decided the 2000 presidential election.
“We challenged the election, and we did much of the things that are being done today and people praised us. I wrote a bestselling book called ‘Supreme Injustice. Now they’re making it a crime,” Dershowitz said.
TRUMP INDICTED OUT OF GEORGIA PROBE INTO ALLEGED EFFORTS TO OVERTURN 2020 ELECTION
Former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd at a campaign event on July 1, 2023 in Pickens, South Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
On Monday a grand jury returned an indictment of Trump after a years-long criminal investigation led by state prosecutors in Georgia into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeff Clark, John Eastman, and others, were also charged out of the years-long investigation.
The charges include violating the Georgia RICO Act—the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act; Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Impersonating a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings; Conspiracy to Commit Filing False Documents; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Filing False Documents; and Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer.
Dershowitz, in speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday evening, said it would be wrong to “expand” the RICO statute to “include political objections,” including ones that members of the Democrat party have made.
“You cannot start making crimes out of things that the Democrats did — Tilden Hayes, John Kennedy election 2000 election 2016 election, Jamie Raskin gets up and does some of the same things. These are political actions that the Constitution prefers us to take rather than going out on the streets and rioting. We’re supposed to go to court. We’re supposed to go to Congress. You can’t make those things crimes. And you can’t expand the RICO statute to now include political objections,” he said.
When Trump was disputing the results of the 2020 election, he made a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him “find 11,789 votes,”
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump reportedly said.
Georgia certified election results showing that Trump’s Democratic opponent Joe Biden won the state’s Nov. 3 election by 11,779 votes.
Dershowitz compared the call to Gore’s legal strategy in 2000.
“It’s pretty much the same thing I did and Professor Lawrence Tribe did, and those of us who were on the Al Gore team,” Dershowitz said.
“I was representing the voters of Palm Beach County, and we were saying ‘please check this county, check that county, find this vote find those votes. We think there are more votes,’” Dershowitz described.
GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE TO INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH AS PART OF JAN. 6 PROBE
Former President Donald Trump was indicted for a fourth time on Monday. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
“We did the same thing and Professor Tribe, wrote a legal memorandum essentially laying out a strategy very similar to the strategy for which these folks are being indicted today,” he said.
“So if you look back at the 2000 election and the protests, I still think to this day, and I’ll say it here on television, that that election was stolen from Al Gore by Bush that he won the actual election. I’m saying that — are they going to come after me now?” Dershowitz said.
The district attorney’s office erroneously posted an indictment document earlier on Monday prior to the grand jury vote. They reportedly said that document was “fictitious” and it was taken down off the website.
TRUMP PLEADS ‘NOT GUILTY’ TO CHARGES STEMMING FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL’S JAN. 6 PROBE
Former President Donald Trump gestures on stage during the Alabama Republican Party’s 2023 Summer meeting at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel on August 4, 2023 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Julie Bennett/Getty Images)
Dershowitz commented that the indictments should not be taken seriously after the prosecutor’s flub.
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“Nobody should take the indictments at all seriously, because they announced the indictment before the grand jury even voted. So the grand jury is just a rubber stamp. And so, nobody should say, ‘Oh, the grand jury indicted, so it must be serious,’” Dershowitz said.
“It’s not the grand jury who indicted, it’s the prosecutors,” he added.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
