Alan Dershowitz’s slender new volume, “Defending The Constitution” (Hot Books, 2020), published and distributed on February 5—the very day President Trump was acquitted in the Senate—largely consists of his verbatim argument on the president’s behalf before the Senate. In his introduction, Dershowitz tells us in exquisite detail how the president, at a dining room table at Mar-a-Lago, managed to persuade Dershowitz’s wife, initially opposed to Dershowitz formally joining the president’s defense team before the Senate, to let him join. As many see it—I’m sorry, Alan—she probably should have stuck to her guns.

Yes, Dershowitz did publicly confirm, albeit late in the game, that President Trump had brought him onto his defense team. Many believed that the noted professor had been on that team long before. Dershowitz has always said no. Indeed, he has repeatedly said that, as the civil libertarian he has been, through his many writings and TV interviews he was basically doing the same thing he’s done throughout his storied career: advocating against injustice wherever it appeared.