Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is demanding to know why the FBI has never raided the homes of Hillary Clinton and her associates.
While questioning the FBI’s raid of President Donald Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, Dershowitz said it constitutes “a double standard of justice” because the feds did not raid Hillary Clinton or former Bill Clinton administration National Security Advisor Sandy Berger.
In an op-ed for The Hill, Dershowitz slammed Joe Biden’s FBI for raiding a former U.S. president.
“The decision by the Justice Department to conduct a full-scale morning raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home does not seem justified, based on what we know as of now,” he writes.
“If it is true that the basis of the raid was the former president’s alleged removal of classified material from the White House, that would constitute a double standard of justice.
“There were no raids, for example, on the homes of Hillary Clinton or former Clinton administration national security adviser Sandy Berger for comparable allegations of mishandling official records in the recent past.
“Previous violations of the Presidential Records Act typically have been punished by administrative fines, not criminal prosecution.
“Perhaps there are legitimate reasons for applying a different standard to Trump’s conduct, but those are not readily obvious at this stage.
“The more appropriate action would have been for a grand jury to issue a subpoena for any boxes of material that were seized and for Trump’s private safe that was opened.
“That would have given Trump’s lawyers the opportunity to challenge the subpoena on various grounds — that some of the material was not classified; that previous classified material was declassified by Trump; that other documents may be covered by various privileges, such as executive or lawyer-client.
“Instead, the FBI apparently seized everything in view and will sort the documents and other material without a court deciding which ones are appropriately subject to Justice Department seizure.”
Dershowitz goes on to say that Trump was “1,000 miles away when the FBI’s search and seizure occurred” so it “would have been impossible for him to destroy subpoenaed evidence.”
“Defenders of the raid argue that the search warrant was issued by a judge,” the legal scholar continues.
“Yet every criminal defense lawyer knows that search warrants are issued routinely and less critically than candy is distributed on Halloween; judges rarely exercise real discretion or real supervision.
“Neutral, objective justice must not only be done: it must be seen to be done.
“For zealous Trump haters, anything done to Trump is justified.
“For zealous Trump lovers, nothing done to him is ever justified.
“For the majority of moderate, thoughtful Americans, however, the Justice Department’s raid likely seems — at least at this point in time — to be unjust or needlessly confrontational.”
“Thus, it is now up to the Justice Department and the FBI to justify their actions to the American public.
“They must explain why a different standard appears to have been applied to Democrats such as Clinton and Berger than to Republicans such as Trump and many of his associates.
“For now, let’s not rush to judgment,” Dershowitz wrote.
“Let’s give the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, the opportunity to explain their actions.
“If they decline to do so, on the basis of confidentiality, a special master should be appointed by the relevant court to assess the evidence seized from Trump’s home on a confidential basis.
“In the alternative, a true congressional committee comprised of both Democrats and Republicans should be appointed to investigate this raid.
“It is true that a president or former president is not above the law — but neither should he or she be below the law.”
