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Biden voter Alan Dershowitz says admin using 'stupidest, dumbest argument' on executive privilege

Biden's argument "would mean the end of executive privilege," he warned

June 9, 2022 7:49pm

Updated: June 10, 2022 8:12am

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said the Biden Administration is putting forward "the stupidest, dumbest legal argument" he has heard by claiming that the current president can waive the executive privilege of a former president. 

Dershowitz, who admitted to voting for President Joe Biden in 2020, slammed the White House's legal claims during an interview with "Just the News, Not Noise" on Thursday.

"The way it works is if Congress wants to enforce a subpoena, it goes to court. It has a hearing in which both sides are presented, not to a political body like Congress, but to a neutral judicial body like the court and the court decides whether or not the claim of privilege prevails," Dershowitz responded to editor-in-chief John Solomon, who had asked for the legal scholar's opinion on the case of former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro. 

The former White House advisor was arrested last week for defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena, which he refused to follow citing executive privilege. 

"I voted for Biden," Dershowitz prefaced before continuing: "The Biden administration has put forward the dumbest legal argument I have heard in my almost 60 years of practicing law, the dumbest legal argument.

"They claim that the current president, Joe Biden, can waive executive privilege that was invoked by the former president. That would mean the end of executive privilege," he warned.

"Who's ever going to talk to a president in confidence when she or he knows that their conversation can be revealed if the new president of a different party decides to waive the privilege. It is the stupidest, dumbest argument," Dershowitz stressed.

"It's worthy of Professor Lawrence Tribe, but it's not worthy of any serious, reasonable, objective, neutral constitutional scholar," he said, referencing the  liberal attorney who helped establish the American Constitution Society to counter the conservative Federalist Society.