The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump

One of America’s most celebrated lawyers and a Democrat explains why impeachment proceedings would be a bad idea for America―and only intensify the larger problem with our democracy. 

In the 2018 New York Times bestseller The Case Against Impeaching Trump, Alan Dershowitz lamented how American political discourse has devolved into hypocrisy and the criminalization of political differences in the rush to impeach President Donald Trump. Arguments to impeach Trump failed Dershowitz’s “shoe on the other foot test,” or his political golden rule: Democrats must do unto Republicans what they would have Republicans do unto them, and vice versa. 

Since then, we’ve only become more divided―and the impeachment power wielded by the new Democratic majority in the House of Representative threatens to further polarize the country. 

The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump includes and expands upon Dershowitz’s 2018 book. It puts recent political events―including the hyper-partisan Kavanaugh hearings, the unrestrained power of the Mueller investigation, and the generally intolerant current political discourse―into context. American democracy, Dershowitz argues, is suffering from political hypocrisy. And two years of impeachment proceedings brought by the House―and the media circus that would undoubtedly surround them―is clearly not the answer. This book is Alan Dershowitz’s plea for honest dialogue―for arguments that would be made even if the shoe was on the other foot.

Alan Dershowitz is one of the most famous and celebrated lawyers in America. He was the youngest full professor in Harvard Law School history, where he is now the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus. The author of numerous bestselling books, from Chutzpah to The Case Against Impeaching Trumpto The Best Defense to Reversal of Fortune (which was made into an Academy Award-winning film) and to The Case for Israel, Dershowitz has advised and defended many of the most famous legal cases of the past fifty years, including O.J. Simpson, Anatoly Sharansky, Michael Milken, Claus von Bulow, and Mike Tyson.