Dershowitz Critiques Trump’s Legal Strategy at Supreme Court

On Wednesday, Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law, shared insights with Newsmax regarding President Trump’s legal team’s recent performance at the Supreme Court.

The Court may potentially limit Trump’s emergency powers used to impose tariffs, a topic his lawyers seemed hesitant to tackle during oral arguments. In a conversation on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz commented that the legal team failed to adequately address constitutional and foreign policy aspects.

“I wish his lawyers had tapped into a wider pool of advice from others on how to present their case,” he remarked. “They might have lost the support of some key justices like Roberts and Gorsuch. Oliver Wendell Holmes once suggested that a lawyer’s role is to anticipate the Court’s leanings.”

Dershowitz cautioned that Trump could revisit the legal issues on constitutional grounds, although it would likely be a lengthy process.

“Given the arguments, I think the chances are substantial that the president may lose here. He might return to the court on constitutional bases, but it’ll take time,” Dershowitz indicated.

While he praised the skills of both sides’ attorneys, he criticized a corporate lawyer’s stance suggesting Congress could simply intervene to resolve the matter.

“Both sides have skilled lawyers. However, the lawyer for the businesses kind of implied, ‘If the president lacks authority, just let Congress handle it.’ That overlooks how Congress really functions,” Dershowitz argued. “If the president loses the authority to use tariffs as a foreign policy tool, he risks handing Congress significant power over foreign relations and military decisions, which goes beyond what the Constitution intended.”

President Trump has invoked two national emergencies to justify the imposition of tariffs. In February, new tariffs targeted Canada, Mexico, and China due to the fentanyl crisis, with “Liberation Day” tariffs instituted in April based on trade imbalances, starting at a 10% rate that scales per country.

Dershowitz noted that Trump’s legal representation has concentrated more on legal interpretation than on constitutional authority. Attorney General John Sauer claimed that Congress’s granting of “import regulation” authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act essentially encompasses tariffs, even if that term isn’t directly referenced. Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back on this notion, cautioning that such an interpretation could grant the president extensive and indefinite taxing power over imports from any nation.