Constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz criticized former special counsel Jack Smith on Monday, accusing him of targeting President Donald Trump before gathering evidence.
On Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren," Dershowitz was asked whether Smith could revive his cases against Trump.
"He is the perfect example of somebody who didn't look at the evidence and decided on the basis of evidence to go after somebody, but decided to go after somebody — Donald Trump," Dershowitz said.
He compared Smith's approach to that of New York prosecutors who brought separate cases against Trump, arguing they sought evidence only after deciding to prosecute him.
"And then they searched for evidence," Dershowitz said. "Even though they got a negative Supreme Court decision, they're going to keep searching for evidence because they're going to get Trump no matter what."
Dershowitz characterized the prosecutions as driven by political hostility toward the president, calling them an example of "Trump Derangement Syndrome on steroids."
"It's one thing for citizens to have Trump Derangement Syndrome," he said. "It's quite another for a prosecutor" to have it.
Smith was appointed special counsel in November 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee two federal investigations involving Trump: his efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election and his retention of classified documents after leaving office.
Smith secured indictments in both cases, but they were dismissed after Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election under the Department of Justice's long-standing policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Smith resigned from the department in January 2025 after submitting his final report.
Dershowitz cited Robert H. Jackson, a former attorney general and Supreme Court justice, saying Jackson warned that the greatest abuse of prosecutorial power occurs when prosecutors select a person first and then search for a crime.
"The worst sin a prosecutor can do is to target people and then look for the evidence to prosecute," Dershowitz said, arguing that such an approach threatens the integrity of the criminal justice system.
He also compared what he described as politically motivated prosecutions to past examples of governments targeting political opponents, saying prosecutors must instead base charging decisions solely on evidence.
"I hope that we'll go back to a situation where the criminal justice system is based on evidence, not based on who you have in your target," Dershowitz said.
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