Alan Dershowitz Continues To Fight Martha’s Vineyard McCarthyites In His Own Mind

For years now, Alan Dershowitz has invited us all to pull up a rocking chair and marvel at the recurring soap opera of his own persecution. He complains about his neighbors hating him, the library, the pierogi stand… everyone is out to get him and it’s always their fault. For a guy still in a mostly one-way feud with Larry David, it’s ironic that Dershowitz spends his vacations in a summer stock presentation of unfunny Curb, where everyone is mad at him and he’s his own worst enemy. Most of all, self-reflection is never, never in the cards.

This year, we’ve finally had some peace and quiet! Against all odds, Dershowitz has fallen silent about his resort town travails, allowing us to all go happily about our lives without this manufactured drama.

So The Atlantic decided to go stir some up.

The magazine dispatched Mark Leibovich to the porch of the Chilmark General Store to eat pizza and listen to Dershowitz recount the woes of an overexposed law professor trapped in his personal pity party. Along the way, the pair chatted about the Larry David fight, unverified tales of harassment, and Jeffrey Epstein. A whole lot of Jeffrey Epstein. The flights, the massage, the island trip.

Funny… the House Oversight Committee has been trying to have this exact conversation for months. That’s when Dershowitz — who is canceled and silenced, don’t you know? — appeared on NewsNation to declare that he remains “very proud” of his role representing Epstein and is “prepared to testify about everything,” adding, “I will personally not invoke privilege. I have nothing to hide.” As soon as Congress took him up on that offer, Dershowitz balked.

Maybe instead of irate letters, Rep. James Comer should come up for a slice at the General Store!

“I never thought I would see McCarthyism come to Martha’s Vineyard,” Dershowitz wrote in The Hill in 2018, comparing the federal government destroying people’s careers and Roy Cohn sending the Rosenbergs to the electric chair to a neighbor not selling him a fucking pierogi. At least we know that guy didn’t sell Dershowitz a pierogi. The professor’s other claims don’t hold up as well to scrutiny. The book festival that supposedly blackballed his work says his claim is “completely false.” The restaurateur everyone’s supposedly pressuring to ban him refused to comment on it. Epstein victim lawyer Chuck Cooper is described as having privately told the professor that he knew Dershowitz could never have done anything — “This event that he’s reporting and this comment that he’s attributing to me are both categorically untrue,” Cooper told Leibovich.

Dershowitz claims a lot of the backlash is over his support for the Israeli government, though the article notes the ostracism he complains about predates the global attention on Gaza. Most of the disdain centers on Dershowitz’s work for two clients in particular: Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

It was his work for Trump that got Larry David yelling at him. It was his Epstein work that motivated an unknown heckler to allegedly mock him outside the Chilmark store. Dershowitz’s “stock explanation was that everyone is entitled to legal representation,” the article notes. That’s why he represented Trump and Epstein and O.J. and Claus von Bülow.

It’s like Gideon, but for the 1 percent.

That’s the problem with the “everyone is entitled to a lawyer” excuse. It may be true, but everyone isn’t entitled to you as a lawyer. And when the clients at issue have millions and millions in the bank, choosing to represent them isn’t a noble sacrifice for the sanctity of the profession, it’s a business decision. Stow the moralizing over any representation that involves the client giving you private jets to attend meetings.

Moreover, Dershowitz’s work for Trump and Epstein sound in a different register than a run-of-the-mill representation. He’s recast himself as token disaffected Democrat, a stock character in the Kabuki theater of right-wing media, trotted out to repeat Republican talking points ensconced in the authority of having at some point been a “lifelong Democrat.” Dershowitz also hasn’t spent years jumping in front of microphones to wax philosophic about O.J.’s innocence, but he does declare to the press that the non-prosecution deal he helped secure for Epstein should have been more lenient. The “everyone is entitled to a lawyer” act lands much better when coupled with critical distance.

Zealous advocacy has a terminal point when the case ends. Dershowitz has used these representations to push his personal brand as a lapsed Democrat to hawk books like “Why I Quit the Dems: And So Should You!” and provide intellectual cover for op-eds like “Statutory Rape Is an Outdated Concept.” His trick is to bootstrap his personal advocacy to his legal work so he can reject any criticism with a sanctimonious lecture on the right to counsel.

The people of Martha’s Vineyard just got tired of it.

But, the article reports, part of the reason we’re not hearing as much about Dershowitz’s exile is that he’s making new friends! He spent a recent evening at a Chabad function hosted by Paul Singer, the hedge fund billionaire you might remember for flying Sam Alito to Alaska on a private jet to go fishing as his legal interests headed toward the Supreme Court. The justice did not recuse himself in that case. Alito, for his part, said he barely knows Singer — a claim complicated by an Above the Law report way back in 2009 where Alito’s “personal friend” Singer introduced the justice at a Federalist Society event.

Alas, the long national nightmare of Dershowitz’s Martha’s Vineyard complaints might finally be behind us. At least until another magazine decides to buy him a slice.

Alan Dershowitz Won’t Forget What Larry David Did to Him [The Atlantic]

Earlier: Alan Dershowitz Suing Pierogi Stand For Aggravated ‘No One Likes Me On Martha’s Vineyard’
Getting To The Delicious Center Of Alan Dershowitz And PierogiGate
Alan Dershowitz Blasted By Larry David At Martha’s Vineyard Grocery Store
Alan Dershowitz Is The Saddest Man In Martha’s Vineyard
Summer Officially Begins As Alan Dershowitz Publicly Complains About No One Liking Him On Martha’s Vineyard
Alan Dershowitz Is So SILENCED That He’s Got A New Book, A New Yorker Interview, Constant Cable News Appearances…
Remember When Alan Dershowitz Begged To Testify About Epstein? Well, Now He’s Not Showing Up
Comer Throws Alan Dershowitz’s ‘Nothing To Hide’ Boast Back At Him With Subpoena Threat
Sam Alito Laments It’s Getting So You Can’t Take All-Expense Paid Luxury Vacations Funded By Billionaires Anymore

---

Joe 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 or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.