Laurence Tribe

We are now at the point where President Trump’s own officials are basically admitting that he has dangled pardons to underlings, as part of an apparent effort to get them to build his border wall in time for reelection. ...As law professor Laurence Tribe points out to me, this raises its own issues, constitutional and otherwise, because it in effect concedes that Trump’s concern in ordering these “takings” of land “isn’t even the public interest but his private political prospects.”

At recent panel discussions in New York, the cast and creators of two top Broadway plays, To Kill a Mockingbird and What the Constitution Means to Me, discussed the plays’ development and relevance, as well as the actors’ participation...The Constitution panel featured its playwright and star, Heidi Schreck, and Harvard Law professor and constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, who appeared with journalist Dahlia Lithwick...“People need to understand what the stakes are in a society run by big brother,” warned Tribe.

Attorney General William P. Barr has booked a ballroom in President Trump’s hotel for his annual holiday party, an event that he could spend tens of thousands of dollars on and that drew criticism from ethics experts. Mr. Barr booked the Presidential Ballroom at the Trump International Hotel for a 200-person holiday party that he holds every year. It could cost more than $30,000, according to a Justice Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a nongovernment function. His decision to hold the event at the Trump hotel comes as the Justice Department works to defend Mr. Trump against charges that he is trying to profit from the presidency...Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and a vocal critic of the Trump administration, said he did consider the contract a “tasteless” decision that would harm Mr. Barr’s reputation, but not an impeachable offense.

President Trump stepped into another controversy of his own making Monday by suggesting the U.S. could host world leaders at his golf resort outside Miami for next year's Group of Seven (G-7) summit. If Trump were to make his resort the meeting venue, his critics argue it would be another clear violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which prohibits presidents from accepting payments from foreign countries, U.S. states or the federal government. ... Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor, tweeted that Trump’s pitch was “Emolumentally clear! Trump keeps proving that he is deliberately violating the Constitution’s main safeguard against financial corruption and compromise of presidential decisions by foreign powers.”

... How did special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony before Congress help or hurt the quest to impeach Donald Trump? Did Mueller reveal the entire truth about Donald Trump and his inner circle's collusion with Russia, obstruction of justice and other probable crimes? Are the Democrats approaching the impeachment of Donald Trump in a tactically and strategically sound manner? How would the framers of our Constitution respond to Donald Trump's behavior as president? Have the Constitution's structural flaws allowed Trump to undermine American democracy and the rule of law? In an effort to answer these questions and many others, I recently spoke with Laurence Tribe, a leading scholar of constitutional law and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Tribe is the author of several books, including his most recent (co-written with Joshua Matz), "To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment."

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday joined a host of prominent figures in sharply questioning how Jeffrey Epstein died in an apparent suicide in federal jail, insisting that he was not dabbling in conspiracy theories even as he echoed them.... Other prominent figures, including former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Representative Al Green, a Democrat of Texas, and Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, all said on Monday that they did not need to wait for an official investigation to assert that something did not add up.... Professor Tribe, who teaches constitutional law at Harvard and who has a social media following of more than half a million people, said on Twitter on Saturday that “you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see an evil cover-up to protect lots of powerful men here.”

Over half a century ago, Congress struck a blow for gender equality when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.... In a brief prepared for several former solicitors general, Joshua Matz, a lawyer in New York, and Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, begin by reminding the court that the meaning of a law “is distinct from how people may have expected the statute would apply when it was enacted”. Citing Oncale v Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.—a 1998 Supreme Court decision recognising that Title VII bars sexual harassment of male employees—the authors recall the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s clarion call to textualism: “it is ultimately our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed”. The brief then turns to the “plain text” of Title VII and observes how it protects LGBT people. It’s not necessarily because “sex” means “sexual orientation” or “gender identity”, the brief argues, but because an employer logically cannot fire someone on one of these bases without paying close attention to their perceived or actual sex, and applying stereotypes governing how people of that sex should present themselves or whom they should be attracted to.

Under a new California law signed into law on Tuesday, President Donald Trump will be ineligible to appear on the state’s presidential primary ballot unless he first discloses his tax returns. ... Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School since 1968 who is widely considered to be one of the most influential constitutional scholars in American history, immediately took to Twitter to preemptively rebuff arguments that the law unconstitutionally placed additional requirements on persons seeking the presidency. “California isn’t adding any requirements for the presidency — which it couldn’t do — but just ensuring that its voters are fully informed about all aspirants. This should survive the predictable constitutional challenge,” Tribe wrote. Also inclined to opine on the newsworthy legislation, Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, said the California law “plainly” violates the U.S. Constitution. “Hey Dems, just stop. This law is plainly unconstitutional,” Lessig wrote on Twitter.

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe: The devil is a notoriously misleading advocate. Lawyers and pundits who revel in advancing arguments that they might like to act on but wouldn’t be caught dead making in a courtroom or legal brief seem to take perverse pleasure in making those demonstrably flawed arguments as “devil’s advocates.” Among the best recent examples is the way some lawyers and others who promote their views of sexual matters in public venues have been making the outlandish claim — as devil’s advocates, they say — that the age of consent to sex for youngsters, and young girls in particular, ought to be lowered if we’re to be consistent with the state laws and judicial rulings enabling younger women and girls to have safe and legal abortions without the consent of parents, guardians or other adults.

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Michele Goodwin, Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine, for a wide-reaching conversation about race and gender and the stories America tells itself so it can sleep at night. ... This week’s show also features excerpts from a live discussion Dahlia moderated at 92nd Street Ywith Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me) and professor Laurence Tribe (Harvard Law School).

After so much waiting—a hundred and twenty-four days, to be precise, since Robert Mueller’s report was delivered—perhaps it was bound to be a disappointment.   ... On Tuesday night, Laurence Tribe, the Harvard law professor who had been one of the President’s toughest critics and an outspoken proponent of impeachment, tweeted that he expected Mueller’s testimony to “shatter” the “mirage” of no collusion, no obstruction that has been Trump’s mantra since the report was released. By early Wednesday afternoon, Tribe recognized that it hadn’t happened. “Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster,” he wrote. “Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it. The effort to save democracy and the rule of law from this lawless president has been set back, not advanced.” Tribe felt better by the late afternoon, arguing that Mueller was issuing a “loud wakeup call” on Russian interference. But the damage was done.

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe: Don’t let anybody fool you: We are engaged in an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors,” to quote the Constitution. The inquiry began on Friday, July 26. No fireworks, no fanfare — omitted for fear of frightening the natives. But the message was loud and clear in the House Judiciary Committee’s court petition for access to redacted material in the Mueller report, and its intention to compel testimony from relevant witnesses. Articles of impeachment have been formally referred to the Judiciary Committee for its consideration, House counsel Douglas Letter said in the Friday filing to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. That consideration, the committee has now informed the court, is underway, as is consideration of whether to recommend its own articles of impeachment.

Some people believe so fervently in the dogmas of free-market capitalism that they would rather rip hungry children away from their families than re-evaluate the tenets of their secular religion. ...For what it's worth, Laurence Tribe — the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School — argued that policies like the one initially threatened by Wyoming Valley West are almost certainly illegal. "This public school policy is outrageous and almost certainly unconstitutional," Tribe told Salon by email. "Threatening to take children away from their parents because their parents fail to pay for particular items supplied by the school violates both due process and the substantive rights of parents to bring up their own children. It also deprives people of the equal protection of the laws in violation of the 14th Amendment. I cannot imagine such a policy surviving judicial attack."

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe: We are eye witnesses to the unraveling of the American project. Watching the old war hero stumble on the stage of history as he tried valiantly to overcome the limitations that his obviously ailing condition imposed on him was painful in itself. Watching the pitiless Republican vultures pick at his bones was even more so. But watching the ugly truth of what our nation threatens to become was worst of all.  That we are governed by a president who seized the office and wields its weaponry with the deliberate and felonious help of a hostile foreign power is now beyond denying.

When John Elwood argued before the U.S. Supreme Court as assistant to the solicitor general in the early 2000s, one gentle, cordial query always made his stomach clench. "May I just ask...," Justice John Paul Stevens would say, or, "Can I ask you a question?" Elwood admits he sometimes thought, "I wish you wouldn't." The polite question was invariably the wind-up to an inquiry that "really cut to the heart of the matter, and zeroed in on the weakest part of your case," said Elwood, who is now a partner at Arnold & Porter. "His mannerism was gentle, and the questions he asked were always fair ones." ... Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, who has argued before the Supreme Court many times, said that style set Justice Stevens apart from his colleagues, who "obviously felt entitled simply to cut off an advocate in mid-sentence or even mid-word." "Justice Stevens was unfailingly courteous and kind, not just with his colleagues and his law clerks, but with counsel arguing at the court in front of him," he told Law360 in an email.

President Donald Trump this week claimed he won an emoluments case brought against him after a federal appeals court dismissed the lawsuit. A Harvard law professor and constitutional expert says that's "bullshit." ... Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe fired back at Trump, noting that the president didn't win the lawsuit at all. "It's all bullshit, of course. He didn't 'win'," tweeted Tribe, explaining that the appellate panel had merely ruled that D.C. and Maryland lacked standing to bring the action. "[A]nd he's still using the Oval Office to rob us blind and fill his coffers with piles of rubles that put him in debt to our adversaries," Tribe continued.

President Trump has struck out in the courts on his effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling essentially called out Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for giving a false excuse for including the question.  ...Constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe reiterates, “In my view, the president does not have either inherent or statutory authority to add the citizenship question by unilateral executive action. Article I of the Constitution — both textually and historically as well as structurally — manifestly assigns census matters to Congress.” He adds, “The 14th Amendment doesn’t alter that assignment but reinforces it. Article II does not give the president any role in this area beyond whatever role Congress delegates to him.” He concludes that Trump could not “could succeed along this path in getting the existing district court injunctions lifted.” Moreover, the existing ruling from the federal courts — preventing the inclusion of the census question — remain in effect.

A letter to the editor by 19 Boston area faculty members, including Laurence Tribe, Dehlia Umunna, and David Harris.  WE ARE 19 FACULTY MEMBERS at universities across the Boston area, including Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University, and Northeastern University. We wish to respond to The Boston Globe’s recent article, “Stopping injustice or putting the public at risk? Suffolk DA Rachael Rollins’s tactics spur pushback,” which contained reporting that appears to us to be, at best, seriously misleading.

“The Justice Department is swapping out the lawyers who had been representing the administration in its legal battle to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census, possibly signaling career attorneys’ legal or ethical concerns over the latest maneuvering ordered by President Trump." Even more extraordinary, a Justice Department official "said the entire team on the case — both those in political positions and career employees who have served multiple administrations — will be replaced with political and career lawyers from the department’s Civil Division and Consumer Protection Branch.” ...Not to put too fine a point on it, but what these lawyers do will have profound consequences for the country and their careers. Constitutional scholar Larry Tribe warns, “The Department of Justice cannot avoid the long-term credibility cost to its litigating posture of contradicting itself in successive filings simply by changing the names of the career DOJ lawyers on the pleadings or by bringing new faces into court. If that’s the aspiration, it’s not going to succeed.”

President Trump said Thursday that he is seeking to delay the constitutionally mandated census to give administration officials time to come up with a better explanation for why it should include a citizenship question. Trump’s announcement, in tweets sent from Japan, came hours after the Supreme Court put on hold his administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, saying it had provided a “contrived” reason for wanting the information. ... Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, said Trump did not appear to be suggesting a marginal adjustment of the census schedule for purposes of litigation but rather was trying try to mold the process to his needs. Tribe called it an indication of “the administration’s contempt of the rule of law.” “The combination of the president’s abject ignorance and manipulative flexibility on these matters is, at a minimum, quite telling,” Tribe said. “It suggests all matters — constitutional and legal — are subject to his whim.”

Rejecting a request from President Trump, a federal judge in Washington on Tuesday cleared the way for nearly 200 Democrats in Congress to continue their lawsuit against him alleging that his private business violates an anti-corruption provision of the Constitution. ...Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe expressed delight upon hearing of the ruling: “That is splendid news for the Emoluments Clause cases — and for the rule of law.” He added, “Today’s ruling confirms that the Trump strategy of denying, delaying, deflecting, and dissembling while continuing to defy the Constitution has all but run its course and that the chickens are finally coming home to roost.”