Alan Dershowitz: A Profile of Evil
A war criminal's lawyer, a pedophile defender, a pro-murder lawyer. This is Alan Dershowitz.
The Devil's Advocate, On Purpose
Alan Dershowitz once told the world he was simply defending civil liberties. That the unpopular deserve the best defense. That power must be held in check by lawyers brave enough to stand up for the rights of the reviled. But somewhere along the way, that mission mutated.
Over time, Dershowitz stopped being the man who challenged the system on behalf of the little guy. Instead, he became a grinning mouthpiece for the powerful, the perverse, and the untouchable. This is not the story of a legal scholar.
This is the story of a man who used the shield of the law to cloak a lifetime of enabling abuse, burying justice under a landslide of plausible deniability.
The Architect of the Epstein Deal
In 2005, Jeffrey Epstein was charged with the sexual abuse of dozens of underage girls. The public was horrified as details emerged, teenage girls recruited from vulnerable backgrounds, shuttled into Epstein's Palm Beach mansion, coerced, abused, and discarded. Media outlets began circling, and there was a growing expectation that Epstein would face serious consequences.
But then Alan Dershowitz entered the picture. With his considerable legal weight and media savvy, he shifted the narrative. He began planting doubt about the credibility of the accusers, portraying Epstein as a victim of prosecutorial overreach. His involvement not only changed the tone of the legal defense, it arguably changed the outcome of the entire case.
Where prosecutors might have pushed for serious jail time, Dershowitz helped forge a plea deal that neutered accountability and protected unnamed co-conspirators. It was not just a legal strategy, it was a silencing of survivors and a masterclass in manipulating a broken justice system. The case seemed open-and-shut. There were victims, witnesses, corroborating evidence. But Epstein had money, and he had Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz helped engineer one of the most disgraceful plea deals in modern American legal history. Epstein was granted a non-prosecution agreement by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, one Alexander Acosta, which guaranteed he would serve just 13 months in a county jail. He was allowed out for 12 hours a day, six days a week.
Most damning: the deal granted immunity to any unnamed "potential co-conspirators." This clause didn't just let Epstein off the hook. It offered blanket protection to other powerful men who may have been involved in trafficking, rape, and coercion. Who asked for that clause? Dershowitz.
I Know Who They Are, I Won't Tell You
In recent years, Dershowitz has claimed to know who was on Epstein's elusive "client list." This calculated withholding has broader implications than just one man's reputation.
In a time when public trust in legal and governmental institutions is already eroding, Dershowitz's behavior feeds into the belief that there is a two-tiered justice system, one for the powerful, and one for everyone else. By dangling insider knowledge while refusing to corroborate or disclose, he doesn't just protect individuals, he undermines the public’s right to transparency in cases of systemic abuse.
The secrecy fuels conspiracy, corrodes accountability, and suggests that legal ethics are less about justice and more about protecting influence. He teases it in interviews, implies knowledge, smirks when asked, but refuses to name names. Why? Because, he says, of confidentiality. Because he's a lawyer. Because it would be unethical.
But that rationale collapses under scrutiny. He is no longer Epstein's lawyer. Epstein is dead. The victims are still seeking justice. And the American public deserves to know who facilitated, participated in, or benefited from Epstein's decades of abuse.
Instead, Dershowitz positions himself as the aggrieved party. He sued Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre for defamation after she claimed he had sex with her while she was trafficked. Years later, a settlement was reached, and Giuffre issued a carefully worded statement suggesting she "may have been mistaken." But the damage was already done, and Dershowitz's behavior during the ordeal—viciously attacking Giuffre in the press—was that of a man fighting not for truth, but for reputation.
Civil Liberties for the Powerful Only
Alan Dershowitz is a man who made his name in civil liberties, but only when the accused are rich, male, and famous. His most high-profile clients read like a who’s who of alleged abusers and tyrants:
O.J. Simpson, whom he helped acquit in a case that relied heavily on undermining forensic evidence and attacking the credibility of law enforcement;
Mike Tyson, whose rape conviction was handled on appeal with a strategy focused more on media rehabilitation than legal nuance;
Harvey Weinstein, where Dershowitz argued for excluding certain witness testimonies under the guise of procedural fairness;
Julian Assange, defended with rhetoric positioning Assange as a martyr of free speech while sidestepping the disturbing allegations against him;
Donald Trump, whose impeachment defense included the astonishing claim that a president acting in what he perceives as the national interest cannot be impeached, regardless of the legality of his actions.
In each case, Dershowitz didn’t just deploy legal tactics, he crafted narratives to transform accused predators into misunderstood figures deserving of public sympathy and legal absolution. O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, Harvey Weinstein, Julian Assange, Donald Trump.
Defending the accused is not, in itself, a moral failing. Every person has a right to legal representation. But Dershowitz doesn’t just represent. He lionizes. He blurs the lines between advocate and cheerleader. In Trump’s first impeachment trial, Dershowitz argued that a president could do anything, including break the law, if he believed it served the public good. That argument wasn’t legal reasoning. It was authoritarian apologism.
And then came Weinstein. When asked why he agreed to advise the disgraced movie producer, Dershowitz said, "Because I believe in due process." In reality, he believed in defending celebrity predators from the consequences of their actions, if it kept his name in the headlines.
The Academic Assassin
Dershowitz's feud with academic Norman Finkelstein reveals another side of the man: a participant in one of the most bitter academic clashes of the early 21st century that reshaped public discourse around academic freedom and the Israel-Palestine debate.
The feud did not merely remain in the halls of academia, it spilled into national media and political debate, symbolizing the growing tension between pro-Israel advocacy and free scholarly inquiry. Finkelstein's tenure denial became a rallying point for critics who believed that dissenting views on Israel were being systematically silenced, and Dershowitz's heavy-handed lobbying became a cautionary tale about the power of influence in higher education.
The public watched as an Ivy League professor used his stature not to defend open debate, but to quash it when it threatened his ideological narrative. not the defender of freedom, but the destroyer of dissent. Finkelstein, a fierce critic of Israeli policy and author of Beyond Chutzpah, accused Dershowitz of plagiarism in The Case for Israel. Finkelstein claimed that Dershowitz not only copied large passages but distorted historical sources.
Rather than engage in scholarly debate, Dershowitz launched a campaign to block Finkelstein's tenure at DePaul University. He lobbied university administrators, sent letters to faculty, and reportedly offered to fund other hires if they denied Finkelstein’s position.
Harvard cleared him of plagiarism, but the question remains: why would a civil libertarian use backdoor channels to silence an ideological opponent? The answer lies in Dershowitz's true philosophy: loyalty to Israel trumps academic freedom. Always.
The Case for Israel, The Case Against Truth
Few modern public intellectuals have done more to confuse moral clarity on the Israel-Palestine issue than Alan Dershowitz. His book The Case for Israel is lauded in Zionist circles, but academic critics call it dishonest, selective, and misleading.
He has dismissed the occupation of the West Bank as a misnomer, called Gaza a "terror base" rather than a humanitarian crisis, and repeatedly accused Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism. In the wake of the 2023 Gaza Genocide, Dershowitz doubled down: denying genocide, whitewashing war crimes, and comparing any criticism of Israel to Holocaust denial.
Dershowitz does not debate in good faith. He does not attempt to reconcile the vast documentation of civilian death, home demolition, and occupation with his ideological framework. Instead, he redefines the terms of debate, so that any resistance to Israeli military policy becomes, by default, morally illegitimate.
The Preventive State and Preemptive Excuses
In June 2025, Alan Dershowitz released what he called his "magnum opus": The Preventive State. The book was met with immediate backlash. Civil liberties organizations condemned its embrace of preemptive measures, arguing it offered legal cover for authoritarian overreach. Reviews in mainstream legal journals ranged from cautious to scathing.
Even some of Dershowitz's former admirers distanced themselves, disturbed by how far he had moved from his earlier positions. The public response, too, was polarized: critics saw it as a betrayal of the principles he once claimed to defend, while right-wing commentators embraced it as a legal roadmap for aggressive state power. In it, he lays out a legal and philosophical framework for a government that prevents crimes before they occur. It’s a vision that, in theory, blends civil liberties with modern security threats. In practice, it’s an open door to authoritarianism.
He calls for preemptive detention, monitoring, and even military strikes to "protect liberty" from terror and unrest. It is, effectively, a legal justification for war without cause, surveillance without warrant, and detention without trial.
The irony is as thick as it is dark: the man who once defended the Bill of Rights now champions a legal system that can detain people for crimes they haven’t yet committed. What changed? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps Dershowitz was never the principled civil libertarian he claimed to be. Perhaps the only principle was power, and staying close to it.
The Man Who Knew Everyone
Alan Dershowitz isn’t just a lawyer. He’s a brand. A media guest. A professional contrarian. For decades, he's been welcomed on cable news and op-ed pages as the man who can explain why the most outrageous behavior is, in fact, legal.
He claims to have met everyone—Epstein, Trump, Clinton, Netanyahu—and speaks with a smugness reserved for people who think proximity equals insight. But what has Dershowitz done with all his access? He’s defended. He’s deflected. He’s distorted.
He hasn’t exposed corruption. He’s shielded it. He hasn’t broken systems of abuse. He’s patched them up and called it justice.
The Legacy of a Legal Mercenary
There will always be lawyers who defend the worst of us. But few have done it so proudly, so often, and with so little humility as Alan Dershowitz. His career is not a story of courage. It is a case study in opportunism.
From shielding Epstein, to silencing academics, to whitewashing war crimes, Dershowitz has traded the moral high ground for prime-time access and book deals. He has draped himself in the First Amendment while undermining the truth. He has made the world more dangerous, not by breaking the law, but by showing the powerful how to bend it.
Alan Dershowitz does not stand for civil liberties. He stands for himself. And the world is worse for it.