‘It’s Not A Crisis’: Alan Dershowitz Explains Historical Precedents For Trump Admin To Invoke State Secrets Privilege

Attorney Alan Dershowitz appeared on Newsmax Wednesday to explain the historical precedents for invoking the state secrets privilege.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and senior Justice Department officials said Wednesday that invoking the state secrets privilege is necessary to prevent a federal judge from accessing details about deportation flights of alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members, describing further judicial inquiries into the matter as needless and obstructive. During an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz said that the recent attempts by the executive branch to invoke the state secrets privilege—a method to withhold sensitive information from legal proceedings—is not unprecedented.

“That’s something that the executive branch can invoke. But generally all that means is if they do that, any criminal prosecution that they try to bring will be dismissed. You can’t have your cake and eat it,” Dershowitz said. “Invoking secrecy and then trying to try somebody forward. Here, there’s no criminal charges pending. So what we’re seeing is that they’re going to try to invoke it in order to deny the court the authority to read certain documents.”

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Dershowitz also discussed the implications of the administration’s strategy to block the disclosure of certain documents in court.

“If they do that, the court can draw inferences then and say, look, they haven’t let me see the document. So I’m going to assume that the documents will not support their point of view. Again, something that’s litigated all the time,” Dershowitz said. “It’s not a crisis. We’ll see whether or not the state secrets act applies here, what the consequences are. Let this play out. The president is pushing the envelope. We know that. That’s why there is so many court cases.”