- Most famous member of Trump’s defense team was absent from the Senate floor Thursday – then turned up on TV from Miami
- Dershowitz, who also defended Jeffrey Epstein, said he had a family commitment which he could not change and team had begged him to stay
- He is at war with critics after telling the impeachment trial that a president could not be impeached for a quid pro quo to aid his re-election
- Harvard professor said that because the president believes his re-election is in the public interest, he cannot be impeached
- Other academics and lawyers criticized the theory saying it gave presidents’ extraordinary powers – and would have cleared Richard Nixon
Donald Trump’s most famous and flamboyant lawyer vanished from his trial Thursday – turning up in Miami to fight back against a tidal wave of criticism for his extraordinary defense that anything a president does to get re-elected is unimpeachable.
The Harvard professor surfaced in Florida as other academics and attorneys reacted with astonishment to his position, which he then said he had never actually said.
On CNN he told Wolf Blitzer that he had a commitment in the state Thursday and it was difficult to change his flight because the Super Bowl is on this weekend in Miami.
He also complained about how CNN had reported what he said, prompting Blitzer to say: ‘We were playing what you said.’
But his main thrust was a rearguard action against a legal theory which Trump’s own defense spent time walking away from Thursday.