Dems could have been indicted for Bush v. Gore by Georgia DA's standards: Dershowitz

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz has said that the charges in former President Donald Trump's latest indictment could have been used against Democrats who insisted that Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election. 

"When I read the indictment, I said to myself, 'Oh, my God. I did some of those things during Bush vs Gore.' I did everything possible to try to get a recount. I called people and said, 'Look, it's only 600 votes. Can't we find 600 votes that were not properly counted?'"

Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted Monday night by a Georgia grand jury for engaging in a broad conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

"This RICO indictment could have been applied to us Democrats who challenged the Bush v. Gore election in Florida," Dershowitz said. "It could have been used against Thomas Jefferson in 1800. It could have been used in the Tilden Hayes election. It could have been used against John F. Kennedy's people in Hawaii. Election challenges are a central part of America."

Some of the charges that Trump and others such as Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani are facing include allegedly making false statements to officials and false statements in relation to voting machines and "false electors." 

Trump is also receiving backlash due to a 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where he asked him to help him "find 11,780 votes."

Dershowitz said that that conversation was exculpatory, but not incriminating. 

"You listen to that conversation from beginning to end and you read the transcript," he said. "It's clear what he was doing. He wasn't saying to manufacture or make votes. He was saying 'there are votes out there that haven't been counted. We have to find those votes.'"

"That's what I said in Florida in 2000," Dershowitz continued. "'We can find 600 votes-the butterfly ballots, the hanging chads. Come on, let's get to work. Let's find 600 votes and turn this election over to Al Gore.' I didn't do anything wrong, and certainly he didn't do anything wrong in this conversation. There may be more that we don't know about."