Attorney Alan Dershowitz appeared on Newsmax Wednesday to explain the historical precedents for invoking the state secrets privilege.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and senior Justice Department officials said Wednesday that invoking the state secrets privilege is necessary to prevent a federal judge from accessing details about deportation flights of alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members, describing further judicial inquiries into the matter as needless and obstructive. During an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz said that the recent attempts by the executive branch to invoke the state secrets privilege—a method to withhold sensitive information from legal proceedings—is not unprecedented.
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“That’s something that the executive branch can invoke. But generally all that means is if they do that, any criminal prosecution that they try to bring will be dismissed. You can’t have your cake and eat it,” Dershowitz said. “Invoking secrecy and then trying to try somebody forward. Here, there’s no criminal charges pending. So what we’re seeing is that they’re going to try to invoke it in order to deny the court the authority to read certain documents.”
Dershowitz also discussed the implications of the administration’s strategy to block the disclosure of certain documents in court.
“If they do that, the court can draw inferences then and say, look, they haven’t let me see the document. So I’m going to assume that the documents will not support their point of view. Again, something that’s litigated all the time,” Dershowitz said. “It’s not a crisis. We’ll see whether or not the state secrets act applies here, what the consequences are. Let this play out. The president is pushing the envelope. We know that. That’s why there is so many court cases.”
Dershowitz highlighted his point by referencing historical figures.
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“Our system is designed to respond to envelope pushing. Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed the envelope. Abraham Lincoln pushed the envelope. Thomas Jefferson pushed the envelope. I guess Andrew Jackson probably more than any other president, where he said you’ve written the decision now, enforce that. That may have been a constitutional crisis,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz said that the country is not in crisis.
“We’re not there yet. And if we do get there, nobody’s going to believe it because CNN and the Democrats have been crying wolf about this. They’ve been claiming constitutional crisis since the day that Trump got elected,” Dershowitz added.
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President Donald Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to the Venezuelan gang TdA, declaring its members as “Alien Enemies” of the U.S. and making them subject to immediate arrest and deportation.
When Trump took office on Jan. 20, he issued several executive orders to reduce illegal immigration. These orders involved designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, declaring a national emergency at the southern border, and directing federal agencies to use “all available resources and authorities” to enhance border security.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
