Laurence Tribe

During the first few months of 2021, President Biden seemed overly reluctant to go after GOP governors over their approach to the spread of covid-19 in their states. The thinking appeared in part to be that this would polarize masks and vaccines, making GOP voters more reluctant to utilize both, setting us back further. ... Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, who had previously advocated for moves like this, notes that what’s at issue is “the rights of America’s children to a safe classroom environment.” “That legal strategy holds great promise of circumventing gubernatorial obstruction of vital local initiatives,” Tribe told us. Tribe added that this is “essential in states whose governors are evidently more concerned with towing the ideological Trump line on vaccines and masks than they are with the health and survival of our kids.”

If American democracy were a hospital patient, the diagnosis would be "critical".  ... In response to the dagger being pointed at the heart of American democracy by Donald Trump, his followers and the Jim Crow Republican Party, President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland are not acting with the necessary urgency. In a new op-ed for the Boston Globe, Laurence Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law at Harvard, offers this warning:  "We need to begin with the fundamental precept that not all crimes are created equal. Those crimes — regardless of who allegedly commits them — whose very aim is to overturn a fair election whereby our tradition of peaceful, lawful succession from one administration to the next takes place — a tradition begun by George Washington, continued by John Adams, and preserved by every president since except Donald Trump — are impossible to tolerate if we are to survive as a constitutional republic."

We did not get a full accounting of the violent insurrection of Jan. 6 during the second impeachment of the president who instigated it. We did not get a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol riot, because Republicans blocked it. We do not yet see signs of an exhaustive Justice Department criminal inquiry into the effort to deny the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election. But now, we just might get the investigation we need by way of the House. ... “The sweeping demand for executive branch records is good news with respect to the scope of the hearing and the ambition of the select committee in getting to the bottom of who did or knew what — and when they did or knew it and with whom — in the long lead-up to the Jan. 6 insurrection and in the surrounding events,” constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me. “My hope is that the Justice Department will take a cue from the breadth of what the select committee is doing.”

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe:  The Justice Department has begun arresting those who assaulted journalists during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol — a series of actions whose importance to our democracy is hard to overstate. Newspeople are front-line defenders of our republic, much as the Capitol Police and other law enforcement officials were on Jan. 6. While all who attacked the Capitol six months ago should be held accountable, prioritizing prosecution of individuals who assault the press or police is paramount. Without the work of both, our security and democracy are at existential risk.

Six months after their leader tried to overturn the election he had lost by more than 7 million votes, Republicans have settled on a message about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol: Insurrection? What insurrection?... Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who believes the country barely dodged a constitutional crisis on Jan. 6, said many Americans simply would rather not think about that day. “It’s human nature to suppress terrible forebodings that don’t quite materialize,” he said, adding that the barrage of Trump-inspired crises during his term likely laid the groundwork. “The cascade of terrible events and near-misses over the past four years has desensitized people if not entirely anesthetized them.”

... At no point in its history, perhaps, has the mission of the Department of Justice been so difficult, so polarizing, and so critical to democratic stability. President Donald Trump had given his supporters the deluded hope that the department might use its powers to substantiate his fantasy that the 2020 election was stolen. ...The day before the Senate voted on Garland’s nomination, Laurence Tribe expressed the hope of many liberals, telling me that as disappointed as he had been to see his former student denied the Supreme Court seat, he was now happy to see him poised to play an even more “historically significant role.” More recently, Tribe, who continues to talk to Garland, said that the attorney general had come to a crossroads. “I think if he continues to disappoint in a way that many people think he has thus far and does not appear to see the bigger picture,” Tribe said, “that will be terribly significant but profoundly dismaying. But if he does what I think he is capable of doing, he will have moved the country in a dramatic way past the terrible cliff that would have spelled the end of the democratic experiment.”

Former U.S. President Donald Trump may have an unlikely ally to defend him against lawsuits alleging he incited the U.S. Capitol insurrection: President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. ... One prominent constitutional scholar characterized the department’s position in the Carroll case as a blunder that will be difficult to undo. “It would be very difficult for the Justice Department to change course now,” said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard University constitutional law professor and a frequent critic of Trump. “The Titanic is aimed at the iceberg.” Tribe and other critics of the department’s position say it fails to draw obvious distinctions between a president's official conduct and matters that clearly fall outside the duties of the office. When a president says or does something illegal, they say, it does not warrant a taxpayer-financed defense by government lawyers.

The pressure campaign started months ago. Outside the US Supreme Court in April, a billboard truck with a black-and-white image of 82-year-old Justice Stephen G. Breyer circled the grounds, neon green letters blaring, “Breyer, retire.” ...“His code words are common sense, decency, democracy,” said Charles Fried, a professor of law at Harvard who served as US solicitor general under Ronald Reagan and has known Breyer since he was a law student. “He is a very practical person. If you look at some of his writings, he is very interested in what the practical effect of what his decisions will be.” ... “He has never been the leader of what people would regard as the liberal flank,” said Laurence Tribe, a longtime Harvard law professor and close friend. Still, “he has been a consistent and rather predicable liberal on matters of racial equality.”

A federal judge whose ruling last week to strike down California's three-decade-old assault weapons ban garnered swift backlash is drawing more criticism over his claims about Covid-19 vaccines, firearm injuries and other subjects....Constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said Benitez's assertions are "utterly without factual foundation.""They are irresponsible in the extreme, whether described as purported 'facts' or repackaged as opinions," Tribe said in an email. "His entire theory about which firearms are protected by the Second Amendment has no basis in the text, history, or judicial interpretation of the Amendment and swallows its own tail by making the circular assertion that the weapons in common use at any given time are those protected by the Amendment."

Months into President Joe Biden's first term, supporters of former President Donald Trump are still touting the "big lie" that Trump actually won the 2020 election. One of the prominent supporters of these theories is Trump's former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit for promoting the big lie. In defending herself against the lawsuit, Powell has argued that no reasonable people would have believed her assertions of fraud. But outside court, Powell has continued to play to Trump's base and bolster theories related to the big lie. During an event in Dallas on Sunday that was also attended by prominent peddlers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, Powell suggested Trump could be reinstated as president even now, saying that "it should be that he can simply be reinstated, that a new Inauguration Day is set." ... It's worth noting that Powell said "should," so it's possible she's not suggesting that the current law allows a president to "simply be reinstated" but that it should. Even so, Harvard University Law School Professor of Constitutional Law Laurence Tribe told CNN it's "still weird and wild," adding that it's likely "it would be unconstitutional if a law was passed to that effect." Tribe referred to Powell's comments as "part of a fantasy world that is truly dangerous to democracy."

The U.S. Justice Department released the first official expenditure report for the special investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia inquiry -- providing a rare bit of insight into the secretive review more than two years after it was begun in response to demands by then-President Donald Trump. The inquiry being led by Special Counsel John Durham spent about $1.5 million from Oct. 19 to March 31, according to the report from the Justice Department released Thursday...Durham’s work has now gone on longer than the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who took over the original Russia interference probe in May 2017 and concluded it in March 2019. Critics continue to question the value of Durham’s inquiry and whether it should be shut down. “Now that Durham’s probe into the FBI’s Russia probe has lasted longer even than the protracted Mueller investigation, it’s hard not to get an Alice-in-Wonderland sense about whatever bottomless rabbit holes these guys are burrowing into,” constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe said... “I suppose DOJ should push Durham to provide a status update, but I doubt much would come from such a push as long as the political costs of forcing Durham to wind things up and close up shop exceed the legal benefits of doing so,” Tribe said in an emailed response to questions.

The "de-platforming" of former President Donald Trump from prominent social media platforms following the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol raises questions about the power of private corporations to regulate public conversation, and the legal system's power to regulate them, in our wired age. Join the ACS Arizona, Austin, DC, Michigan, Orange County, and Philadelphia Lawyer Chapters as we welcome a panel of prominent experts to discuss the broader implications for free speech. Featuring: Katie Fallow, Senior Staff Attorney, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; Gautam Hans, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Vanderbilt Law School; Colin Stretch, Lecturer in Law, Columbia Law School, and former General Counsel of Facebook, Inc.; Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Emeritus, Harvard Law School; Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law. Moderated by: Dan Kaplan, Assistant Federal Public Defender; Member, ACS Phoenix Chapter Board of Directors.

Donald Trump’s lawyers argue the former president has “absolute immunity” from legal charges related to the Capitol invasion, which defense Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe calls “a remarkable claim.” Prof. Tribe says Donald Trump answers to the American public, and that “one of the ways you answer to the people is by being held accountable for the damages that you do when you aim an angry mob at members of Congress.”

Dozens of constitutional experts are sending a letter telling congressional leaders they have the authority to make the nation's capital the 51st state. "As scholars of the United States Constitution, we write to correct claims that the D.C. Admission Act is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge in the courts," write the 39 signatories, who include Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law, Erwin Chemerinsky of UC Berkeley Law, Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia and Leah Litman of the University of Michigan Law School. They argue that there is "no constitutional barrier" to the District's "entering the Union through a congressional proclamation, pursuant to the Constitution's Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other states that have been admitted since the Constitution was adopted." The letter is a new entry into the heated battle over whether Congress can — and should — make this city of about 700,000 residents a state, with equal representation on Capitol Hill. It is likely to fuel the debate over legal questions that have left proponents struggling to find a path to get the legislation on the desk of President Joe Biden, who has endorsed statehood.

States eager to use federal coronavirus relief money won some leeway from the Treasury Department in how they may deploy it without violating a prohibition on cutting taxes with it. But the guidance isn’t enough to end Republican state lawsuits against the ban. Interim final rules released by the Treasury Department on Monday permit states to issue tax relief under their own tax authorities as long as the relief amounts to no more than 1% of a state’s 2019 reporting year’s total revenue. It also allows them to adjust for inflation. But for larger tax changes states must show how they plan to offset any potential net revenue changes without using the $350 billion sent to them in the latest relief law...Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, expressed skepticism about states’ ability to win their challenges following Treasury’s latest rules. “This interim guidance seems to me sufficient to overcome any legitimate red state constitutional objections,” he said.

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe: Privately owned social media platforms like Facebook have exploded with wealth and influence. These companies have thrived on an opaque business model that weaponizes a fantasy version of the First Amendment to justify offering users temptingly convenient forms of personalized information-sharing. Of course, we know now these services often end up manipulating the appetites of ordinary people, mining their habits and exploiting the resulting profiles by targeting what amounts to propaganda at those most likely to soak it up, spread it and end up being harmed by it. The recent brouhaha over Facebook’s exile of President Trump and its use of a self-appointed panel of overseers to duck responsibilityfor the harmful lies Trump and his followers propagated on its platform — and the deadly insurrection they used it to pull off — seems likely to be only the first of a series of showdowns with the likes of Trump, who is bound to keep trying to get back onto Facebook. The controversy over Facebook’s actions (or lack thereof) may well be just the latest in what look to be a series of close encounters with the death of democracy.

Facebook's Oversight Board is expected to make its decision public today on whether or not former President Donald Trump will be allowed to return to the platform after a January ban following the deadly assault on the Capitol, accusing him of inciting the violence. Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, joins CBSN AM to discuss.

Former President Donald Trump will find out this week whether he gets to return to Facebook in a decision likely to stir up strong feelings no matter which way it goes. The social network’s quasi-independent Oversight Board says it will announce its ruling Wednesday on a case concerning the former president. Trump’s account was suspended for inciting violence that led to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riots... “If they reinstate him, Facebook will claim this proves the Board’s independence. If they don’t, Facebook will say its judgment to exclude Trump was vindicated. Heads they win, tails we lose. Journalists should know better than to take this window dressing seriously,” said Laurence Tribe, professor at Harvard Law School and member of the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group critical of Facebook and its panel. Facebook created the oversight panel to rule on thorny content on its platforms in response to widespread criticism about its inability to respond swiftly and effectively to misinformation, hate speech and nefarious influence campaigns. Its decisions so far have weighed on the side of free expression vs. restricting content.

On this episode of Conversations with Jim Zirin, renowned Harvard constitutional law Professor Laurence H. Tribe discusses all the civil suits and potential criminal charges targeting Donald Trump. He tells Jim Zirin that Trump has some interesting defenses in the possible criminal cases, but, at the end of the day, he will be held accountable.

A Latina law school professor has been tasked with examining the future of one of the country's three branches of government. President Joe Biden has signed an executive order creating a presidential commission to study whether the Supreme Court should be overhauled, and he has named Yale Law School professor Cristina M. Rodríguez as its co-chair. Rodríguez and Bob Bauer, a professor at the New York University School of Law, will head the bipartisan commission to examine arguments both for and against a reform. ... The commission includes some of the nation’s best-known legal scholars and experts: Laurence H. Tribe of the Harvard Law School, Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, and Andrew Crespo, also of the Harvard Law School. Crespo, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, was the first Latino president of the Harvard Law Review.