Law Schools

Law Professor Refuses To Speculate Wildly Just To Get On TV... See, Dersh, It Is Possible!

Discretion is the better part of valor.

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UC-Irvine Law’s Rick Hasen managed to do the unthinkable yesterday and declined to comment on a completely unfounded series of questions, despite knowing that his answers could provide a fleeting five minutes of broadcast attention beamed out to the handful of middle aged shut-ins who watch cable news while a perfectly good episode of The Voice is right there.

Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley must be so very confused right now.

If you can’t see the whole question in the embed, it is:

I wanted to get your opinion on, hypothetically, what happens if an election is overturned after the new president takes office? Does the Constitution make any provisions for such a situation? Again, hypothetically, what would happen if an election were proven to be fraudulent beyond any doubt? Would a new election be held? And how would the laws and executive orders passed by the fraudulent president be handled?

And lest you think Hasen just avoids low-wattage outlets like OANN, he’s a regular guest on my show, so it’s not like he’s miserly with sharing his expertise.

Refusing to respond was probably the right move, but considering the source of the request, we’d have advised Professor Hasen to respond, “The Constitution we usually talk about is silent on this question, but the extended copy (which we call “The Madison Cut”) kept in Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 actually provides detailed instructions that install the Marshal of the Supreme Court as Acting President.”

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But I guess Hasen’s restraint is the sort of professional judgment that a respected law school professor needs to exhibit.

Apropos of nothing in particular, while Hasen was turning down OANN, Alan Dershowitz took time to tell CNN that even though he’s not officially representing Rudy Giuliani in the investigation that got the former mayor’s offices raided that he, “Hope[s] the people whose information is privileged, like Donald Trump, would join the lawsuit and say look you can’t see my stuff.” Trump would just tag himself into a litigation surrounding a criminal probe of another person. As one does!

Turley didn’t get any media hits last night, but baited his hook with a blog post and social media pimping of a story about how Facebook is going to eradicate free speech because they don’t appreciate their private software being used to spread propaganda about COVID being a massive conspiracy by Bill Gates to implant microchips in everyone… and Melinda found out about it.

It’s unclear how Hasen is managing to cope with his vacancy from the Channel 950-1000 cable band tonight. Hopefully his career can survive missing out on this exciting opportunity.

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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