Alan Dershowitz talked to FNC's Tucker Carlson about the grief he has taken from his liberal friends. He talked about a dinner party on Martha's Vineyard which he was not invited to but was the subject of. He said he would have pointed his finger at his liberal friends and told them they should've had the same vigor they do now for electing Hillary Clinton that they do now to attack him.





TUCKER CARLSON: I was struck by this story... because you've taken really unpopular positions, some that I disagree with, over the years and you haven't had this problem. What's the difference?



DERSHOWITZ: Well, it's Trump. Trump changes everything. Just yesterday on Martha's Vineyard there was a dinner party to which I was -- my wife and I were not invited but apparently, I was the subject of the entire conversation. People asking, 'What's happened to Dershowitz? Why has he turned to the right?'







And I wish I would have been there because I would have pointed my finger to my liberal friends and said it's all your fault. If you would have worked this hard for the election of Hillary Clinton as I did and if she had been elected and they were trying to impeach or charge her, I'd be saying exactly the same things in defense of her rights as I did in the defense of Bill Clinton and also in defense of the rights of Richard Nixon going back to the 1970s. I haven't changed. I have not changed; they have...



CARLSON: You've been at this for half a century, an awfully long time, at the forefront of the civil libertarian left. Has that group shrunk? Has it not just shrunk but maybe the left is less interested in traditional civil liberties than it used to?



DERSHOWITZ: Shrunk? There are no civil libertarians left on the left, certainly not the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). They were the ones who said that the raid on Cohen's office, taking his lawyer-client files was a good thing. Not even suggesting what I suggested which was ultimately adopted by the judge to have a judicial monitor going through all of these emails.



The ACLU is dead in the water when it comes to defending the civil liberties of people who they don't agree with and that's just awful. There are still some civil libertarians left, but you can count them on one hand. Everybody has to pass the 'shoe on the other foot' test. If the shoe were on the other foot would you be taking the same position you are taking today? I pass that test; there are some others who pass that test. But too many on both the left and on the right don't pass the test.



If Hillary Clinton had been elected a lot of the people who have been supporting me and defending me on the right would be attacking me for criticizing the prosecution or the impeachment of Hillary Clinton.



We need neutral principles. We need standards of constitutionality that are apolitical and I refuse to allow partisan politics to preempt my views on the constitution which have stayed the same for 50 years.