Dershowitz: Jack Smith could face fraud charge for omitting Trump's 'peaceful' statement

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Friday that Special Counsel Jack Smith should by all rights face the same fraud charges he's levying against former President Donald Trump for the way he chose to word Trump's indictment, omitting the latter's statement that if people were to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they should be "peaceful."

"Under the indictment itself, Jack Smith could be himself indicted," Dershowitz said on Megyn Kelly's SiriusXM program. "He told a direct lie in this indictment. He purported to describe the speech that President Trump made on January 6th. And he left out the key words, when President Trump said, ‘I want you to demonstrate peacefully and patriotically.' You know, a lie by omission, under the law, can be as serious as a lie by commission.”

Dershowitz felt that the omission was deliberate because Trump's lawyers repeated his statement about being peaceful over and over during his trial.

“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump actually said at the time, but Smith deliberately chose not to include that in the indictment because it weakens his case that Trump caused the so-called "riot" at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Smith did not charge Trump with incitement, but instead said that his "lies" about the election caused the events of the day, which Democrats call an insurrection, and I call a breach.

If Smith is already being this dishonest, his strategy for Trump's trial will no doubt be even worse.