He has said he could pardon himself and vowed to systematically stonewall “all” congressional subpoenas. In domestic policy, Mr. Trump has pushed the limits of emergency powers laws to claim a right to spend more taxpayer money on a border wall with Mexico than Congress was willing to appropriate. Against the backdrop of all this and more, critics of Mr. Trump seized on Mr. Dershowitz’s remarks. Mr. Dershowitz did not attend the impeachment trial on Thursday, but another member of the president’s defense team, Patrick Philbin, also distanced himself from the impression Mr. Dershowitz had left. At one point he invoked something else Mr. Dershowitz had said, hastening to add, “And I don’t mean in the more radical portion of his explanation of his theory.”

Source: New York Times January 31, 2020 00:56 UTC