Letters to the Editor: Alan Dershowitz’s defense of Trump was nonsensical and very frightening

To the editor: By the logic of President Trump’s impeachment defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, if Trump shot and killed someone on 5th Avenue, including his political opponent in the election, it wouldn’t be a crime if it was done in the interest in having the greatest-of-all-time president reelected, and it certainly would not be impeachable.

And when Trump is not reelected this time, or perish the thought has served out his second term, what’s to say he couldn’t just decide that it’s in the public interest to have him stay on a bit longer?

Why stop at acquittal? The Senate should simply anoint Trump king of America.

Steve Gerhardt, Redondo Beach

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To the editor: I am troubled by the intellectual dishonesty of those defending the president’s conduct as not impeachable.

The Constitution grants the power of impeachment exclusively to Congress, and despite the efforts of scholars and laypeople to determine what’s impeachable, the reality is it does not matter because the vote to impeach and remove is not subject to appeal to any other branch of government.

Since conviction by the Senate is not appealable, the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is subject to Congress’ interpretation. What it means today may not be what it means tomorrow. The only thing stopping the removal of a president for, say, spitting on the sidewalk, or for that matter declining to convict this president for his continued abuses, is the wisdom of Congress.

It is a mistake to say with authority that impeachment requires the accused to have committed a crime. Saying it repeatedly does not make it so.

Anyone who believes that the Senate was right not to call witnesses, that Trump’s conduct did not warrant removal from office, or that impeachment requires a crime, needs to take a class in civics, and preferably one not taught by Dershowitz.

Scott Howard Siegel, Glendale

The writer is an attorney.