Dershowitz fires back after Warren criticism: She 'doesn't understand the law'

Alan DershowitzAlan Morton DershowitzMoussaoui says he now renounces terrorism, bin Laden The Hill’s Coronavirus Report: Frist says Manhattan Project-like initiative necessary to fight virus; WH to release plan for easing lockdowns The Hill’s Campaign Report: Biden faces tough task of uniting Democrats MORE, a member of President TrumpDonald John TrumpSenate advances public lands bill in late-night vote Warren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases Esper orders ‘After Action Review’ of National Guard’s role in protests MORE’s legal team in the Senate impeachment trial, fired back at Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenWarren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: Joint Chiefs chairman says he regrets participating in Trump photo-op | GOP senators back Joint Chiefs chairman who voiced regret over Trump photo-op | Senate panel approves 0B defense policy bill Trump on collision course with Congress over bases with Confederate names MORE (D-Mass.) after she criticized a presentation he gave in the proceedings.

“Warren doesn’t understand the law,” Dershowitz tweeted. “My former colleague, Senator Warren, claims she could not follow my carefully laid out presentation that everybody else seemed to understand. This says more about Warren than it does about me.”

Warren doesn’t understand the law.
My former colleague, Senator Warren, claims she could not follow my carefully laid out presentation that everybody else seemed to understand. This says more about Warren than it does about me. (1 of 2)

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 28, 2020

Dershowitz, who is an opinion contributor for The Hill, currently teaches at Harvard Law School, where Warren also once taught.

His response comes after Warren criticized Dershowitz’s presentation as “nonsensical,” saying his presentation did not properly characterize the role of intent in criminal law.

“His characterization of the law simply is unsupported. He is a criminal law professor who stood in the well of the Senate and talked about how law never inquires into intent and that we should not be using the president’s intent as part of understanding impeachment,” Warren told reporters Monday.

“Criminal law is all about intent. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. That’s the very basis of it. So it makes his whole presentation just nonsensical. I truly could not follow it.”

Dershowitz said Warren “willfully mischaracterized” his remarks when she said he discussed intent, maintaining he instead discussed the need to discern “mixed motives.”

“If Warren knew anything about criminal law she would understand the distinction between motives – which are not elements of crime—and intent, which is. It’s the responsibility of presidential candidates to have a better understanding of the law,” he tweeted.

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(3 OF 3)
If Warren knew anything about criminal law she would understand the distinction between motives – which are not elements of crime—and intent, which is. It’s the responsibility of presidential candidates to have a better understanding of the law.

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 28, 2020

Dershowitz has emerged as one of Trump’s highest-profile legal defenders, often appearing on cable news to maintain that the president’s actions were not impeachable.

He gave lengthy remarks during the Senate’s trial on Monday, arguing that issues like abuse of power and obstruction of Congress “are outside the range of impeachable offenses.”

“You cannot turn conduct that is not impeachable into impeachable conduct simply by using words like ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘personal benefit.’ It is inconceivable that the Framers would have intended so politically loaded and promiscuously deployed a term as ‘abuse of power’ to be weaponized as a tool of impeachment. It is precisely the kind of vague, open-ended and subjective term that the Framers feared and rejected,” Dershowitz said.

The House in December voted largely along party lines to approve two articles of impeachment. Democrats said Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and obstructed Congress by trying to hinder subsequent congressional probes of his requests to Kyiv.

The back-and-forth between Dershowitz and Warren comes less than a week before the Iowa caucuses on Monday, where Warren hopes to put up a top-tier finish to help propel her White House bid in later primary and caucus states.