Washington (CNN) Constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz said in 1998 a president could be impeached even if they were not accused of a crime. Now that he's helping President Donald Trump's impeachment defense, he's saying something different.

In August 1998, during the summer leading up to then-President Bill Cinton's impeachment, Dershowitz argued that a president does not have to commit a "technical crime" in order for it to constitute impeachable conduct.

"It certainly doesn't have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don't need a technical crime," Dershowitz told "Larry King Live."

He added: "We look at their acts of state. We look at how they conduct the foreign policy. We look at whether they try to subvert the Constitution."

But on Sunday he told CNN's Brianna Keilar on "State of the Union" that in his defense of Trump he would cite former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis in saying the framers of the Constitution intended for impeachable conduct to mean "criminal-like conduct."

Read More