Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz appeared on Newsmax Thursday and torched Democratic state attorneys general for suing the Trump administration over its tariff agenda and said their legal case is “so far-fetched” it borders on laughable.
Twelve states sued the Trump administration in a New York trade court, claiming his tariff policy is unlawful and driven by personal whims rather than legal authority. During an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz said that the plaintiffs lack the legal standing required under the Constitution.
“In some countries in the world, you don’t need standing. In Israel, for example, anybody can bring a lawsuit challenging the government,” Dershowitz said. “But in the United States, we have a constitutional requirement under Article 3 that there be actual cases and controversies.”
Dershowitz said that in the U.S., plaintiffs must show a “distinct, particularized interest” in a case.
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“State attorney generals just have no particularized interest. They’re like anybody else in the United States. Tariffs are very complicated. Judges don’t have any basis for deciding whether they’re good or bad for the economy,” Dershowitz added. “That can be decided by legislatures if they decide to take over the issue or by elected executives, but not by appointed judges.”
Host Greta Van Susteren asked if a state could sue on behalf of its devastated agricultural sector.
“I don’t think so. I think you’d have to have the farmers bringing the lawsuit, not the attorney general of the state. But even farmers would have a difficult time demonstrating that they were directly impacted in a way that was illegal by the tariffs,” Dershowitz said.
Although the tariffs might have caused economic disruption, Dershowitz said that’s not enough to get through the courtroom door.
“When you have tariffs, some people are helped, some people are hurt. That’s the nature of the economy. There are winners, and there are losers. Trump ran for office promising that he would use tariffs, and he was elected. So I just don’t think there is standing to challenge this by virtually anybody,” Dershowitz said. “But if anybody would have standing, it would be a particular person who may have been subject to the tariff who would otherwise be able to sell his product cheaper than he could sell it now. But this is such a stretch that I think they’re going to be laughed at.”
New York State Democratic Attorney General Letitia James and the top prosecutors of 11 other states filed the lawsuit that challenges Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify his tariff policy. They said he cannot impose tariffs arbitrarily under the law. The suit asks the court to declare the tariffs illegal and block federal agencies and officials from enforcing them.
While James leads a multi-state legal effort against Trump’s tariff powers, she now faces scrutiny of her own. The Daily Caller News Foundation visited two Virginia properties tied to fraud allegations against her and found no indication that she resides at either location.
James dismissed the fraud allegations against her as “baseless” and politically motivated. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, however, referred her to the Department of Justice for allegedly falsifying real estate documents. Records show she reported loans inconsistently on financial disclosures.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Newsmax)
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