Alan Dershowitz: Ousting Trump via 25th Amendment is an attempted coup
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz says, if true, the Department of Justice’s discussions to employ the 25th Amendment to oust President Trump amounted to an attempted coup.
It took nearly two years, but talk radio star Mark Levin is taking a victory lap over his claim there was a Deep State “silent coup” attempt against President Donald Trump.
Levin, a best-selling author whose daily broadcast is heard by more than 10 million listeners on nearly 400 stations and who also hosts Fox News’ “Life, Liberty & Levin”, made the explosive claims as far back as March 2017 on his radio talk show. He repeated the claim on "Fox & Friends" last August, saying, "This attempt to sabotage this president, this coup that is taking place and make no mistake it is, the Democrats want the president out by hook or by crook."
Use of the explosive term drew ridicule from the mainstream press, but fresh reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and ex- FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed invoking the 25th Amendment have the former Reagan administration attorney claiming vindication.
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“The media has finally caught up and are reporting on what was described on this program as a “silent coup,” Levin said on his radio show Wednesday.
“In March of 2017 this program deduced from the media leaks that a rogue operation within our own government was working to prevent, and then remove, a President of the United States.
“The fallacious basis they laid out for the investigation is unraveling as each of them turns on each other,” he added.
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Levin went on to blast Rosenstein as a “coward and a liar,” and McCabe as a “leaker… just like James Comey.”
The “coup” claims have gained credence among legal experts, conservative politicians and pundits in the wake of recent bombshell information revealed in McCabe’s new book, "The Threat," and a “60 Minutes” interview.
During a CBS interview on Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., vowed to “get to the bottom” of McCabe’s recent remarks, and questioned whether they amounted to an “attempted bureaucratic coup.”
“We're a democracy. People enforce the law. They can't take it into their own hands. And was this an attempted bureaucratic coup? I don't know. I don't know who is telling the truth. I know Rosenstein vehemently denied it but we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Graham said.
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Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Monday he hopes the reports are not true, saying it would have been a step toward a “coup d’etat.”
“This is a serious issue. I think McCabe and Rod Rosenstein really believed that the president had obstructed justice,” Dershowitz said.
“"Any law enforcement official who thinks that the 25th Amendment operates in a case like this is disqualified from serving in government. That would be a serious movement toward an unconstitutional coup d'etat, and I hope that didn't happen."
During the "60 Minutes" interview, McCabe told Scott Pelley: “Rod raised the [25th Amendment] issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort.”
He added he believed Rosenstein was "counting votes or possible votes" to remove Trump from office.
Rosenstein repeatedly has denied he "pursued or authorized recording the president" and also has denied McCabe's suggestion that the deputy attorney general had broached the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment, which allows Cabinet members to seek the removal of a president if they conclude that he or she is mentally unfit.
The Justice Department echoed both denials in a statement released last week, saying Rosenstein "was not in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."
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