Below is my column in the New York Post in response to the attack this week by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe. I am honestly saddened by the ad hominem attacks that have become common place with many academics like Tribe. There was a time when legal disagreements could be passionate but not personal. The use of personal insults and vulgar trash talking were avoided in our profession. Now even law deans have called Supreme Court justices “hacks” to the delight of their followers. I have always said that there are good-faith arguments on both sides of the 14th Amendment theory despite my strong disagreement with the theory. The public would benefit from that debate based on precedent rather than personalities.
Here is the column:
This week, CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” offered what has become a staple of liberal cable news: Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe assuring Democrats that they are justified in an unconstitutional effort while attacking opposing views as “nonsense.”
I was singled out on this occasion for Tribe’s latest personal attack because I voiced a legal opinion different from his own.
Being attacked by Tribe as a “hack” is not as much of a distinction as one might expect.
Indeed, it is relatively tame in comparison to Tribe’s past vulgar and juvenile assaults on others.
Tribe has attacked figures like Mitch McConnell as “McTurtle” and “flagrant d**khead.”
He attacked former Attorney General Bill Barr’s religion and thrills his followers by referring to Trump as a “Dick” or “dickhead in chief.”
Tribe often shows little patience for the niceties of constitutional law or tradition.
He has supported the call for packing the Supreme Court as long overdue.
He has also supported an array of debunked conspiracy theories like denouncing Barr as guilty of the “monstrous” act of shooting protesters in Lafayette Park with rubber bullets to make way for a photo op — a claim found to be utterly untrue.
Some of Tribe’s conspiracy theories are quickly disproven — like his sensational claims of an anti-Trump figure being killed in Russia.
Nevertheless, Tribe remains the “break the glass” academic for Democratic leaders when political expedience requires a patina of constitutional legitimacy.
I have long disagreed with Tribe over his strikingly convenient interpretations of the Constitution.
We crossed swords decades ago during the impeachment of Bill Clinton, when Tribe argued that it was not an impeachable offense for Clinton to lie under oath.
Even though a federal court and even Democrats admitted that Clinton committed the crime of perjury, Tribe assured Democrats that it fell entirely outside of the constitutional standard of a high crime and misdemeanor.
However, Tribe would later say that Trump’s call to Ukraine was clearly and undeniably impeachable.
Indeed, Tribe insisted that Trump could be charged with a long list of criminal charges that no prosecutor ever pursued — including treason.
Tribe even declared Trump guilty of the attempted murder of Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021.
Even though no prosecutor has ever suggested such a charge, Tribe assured CNN that the crime was already established “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt.”
That is the key to Tribe’s appeal: the absence of doubt.
Every constitutional road seems to inevitably lead to where Democrats want to go — from court packing to unilateral executive action.
Take student loan forgiveness.
Even former Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that the effort to wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars of student loans would be clearly unconstitutional.
However, Tribe assured President Biden that it was entirely legal.
It was later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Tribe was also there to support Biden — when no other legal expert was — on the national eviction moratorium.
The problem, Biden admitted, was his own lawyers told him that it would be flagrantly unconstitutional.
That is when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave Biden the familiar advice: Just call Tribe.
Biden then cited Tribe as assuring him that he had the authority to act alone.
It was, of course, then quickly found to be unconstitutional.
Even Democratic laws that were treated as laughable were found lawful by Tribe.
For example, the “Resistance” in California passed a clearly unconstitutional law that would have barred presidential candidates from appearing on the state ballots without disclosing tax records.
Tribe heralded the law as clearly constitutional and lambasted law professors stating the obvious that it would be struck down.
It was not just struck down by the California Supreme Court but struck down unanimously.
Likewise, California Governor Gavin Newsom pushed for the passage of an anti-gun rights law that was used to mock the holding of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling in Dobbs.
Yet Tribe declared the effort as inspired and attacked those of us who stated that it was a political stunt that would be found legally invalid.
It was quickly enjoined by a court as unconstitutional.
In an age of rage, the most irate reigns supreme.
And there is no one who brings greater righteous anger than Laurence Tribe.
That is evident in arguably the most dangerous theory now being pushed by Tribe — and the source of his latest attack on me.
Democrats are pushing a new interpretation of the 14th Amendment that would allow state officials to bar Trump from the ballots — preventing citizens from voting for the candidate now tied with Joe Biden for 2024 election.
This is all being argued by Tribe and others as “protecting democracy,” by blocking a democratic vote.
Democrats have claimed that the 14th Amendment prevents Trump from running because he supported an “insurrection or rebellion.”
They have argued that this long dormant clause can be used to block not just Trump but 120 Republicans in Congress from running for office.
I have long rejected this theory as contrary to the text and history of the 14th Amendment.
Even figures attacked (wrongly) by Trump, such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have denounced this theory as dangerous and wrong.
Tribe was set off in his latest CNN interview after I noted that this theory lacks any limiting principle.
Advocates are suggesting that courts could then start banning candidates by interpreting riots as insurrections.
After I noted that the amendment was ratified after an actual rebellion where hundreds of thousands died, Tribe declared such comparisons “nonsense.”
He asked “how many have to die before we enforce this? There were several who died at the Capitol during the insurrection.”
My comment was not to do a head count, but to note that (since Tribe believes that there is no need for a congressional vote) one would at least expect a charge of rebellion or insurrection by Trump.
Yet Trump was not even been charged with incitement.
Not even Special Counsel Jack Smith has charged him with incitement in his two indictments.
The 14th Amendment theory is the perfect vehicle for the age of rage and Tribe, again, has supplied the perfect rage-filled analysis to support it.
The merits matter little in these times.
You can be wrong so long as you are righteously and outrageously wrong.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
The Maxims of Theognis
“To upset a man well established is easy; but to set right that which is ill settled, is difficult.
Spurn the empty spirited rabble; strike them with sharp goad, and place around then a galling yoke. For no more will you find a populace so fond of despots among all men, as many as the sun look down upon.”
Fools a many reside in the leftists’ conceit. Hypocrisy is the highest form of a pretentious ego.
A FABLE OF AESOP: ‘The Ass Carrying the Image’
An Ass once carried through the streets of a city a famous Image, to be placed in one of its Temples. The crowd as he passed along made lowly prostration before the Image. The Ass thinking that they bowed their heads in token of respect for himself, bristles up with pride and gave himself airs, and refused to move another step. The driver seeing him thus stop, laid his whip lustily about his shoulders, and said “O you perverse dull-head! It is not yet come to this, that men pay worship to an Ass.”
Tribe makes as much sense as Pollack or Kandinsky, it’s just gibberish splashed about!
George W,
I think that should be the winning comment of the day!
Well said!
Think whatever you like about Jackson Pollack or the entire school of NY Abstract Expressionism, but Wassily Kandinsky was an absolute genius who changed the world of visual perception as much or more than anyone who’s ever lived. There’s not a person who’s attended art or architecture school in the last 100 years who isn’t familiar with the contributions Kandinsky has made to the art and SCIENCE of human perception.
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=563750832&rlz=1C1UEAD_enUS1061US1064&q=kandinsky+art&tbm=isch&source=univ&fir=4nV2DJhL27PWgM%252CZmpZtQZEOusCcM%252C_%253BgPnLHvd4ROn5dM%252CM3dmcIXc00oCkM%252C_%253BgjAQxDkYlsE8LM%252CYryxPXEAtrsVOM%252C_%253BhehA8cZDrt6shM%252CHkhO0kMFVUNH3M%252C_%253BQMhBwmq_hkPs9M%252Cwl3vIPVh4p87gM%252C_%253Bfq52dmXWhaDprM%252C0s05N73dhtXR8M%252C_%253BqyQ8G1QOw30BTM%252CVb_G_-uYI4RaXM%252C_%253Bn8BlzV3kK2qNgM%252CQzxqwMP90lc5VM%252C_%253BWPPsbKGmVPJAyM%252CodF_Qo_NC49b0M%252C_%253BkiN3B5iWnxHjoM%252CY3gcY0WCNZwOBM%252C_%253BaAcr72Ct_-7dqM%252CkG5hgxf9GtP9wM%252C_%253BQ5s8DJ5fWhS63M%252CtMkQgLiTC0oWkM%252C_%253BCECSTjDEjpolUM%252CPSlCwo6grVpdEM%252C_%253BXw8kz4uBpHpVOM%252CtDsdzto7gYLzTM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kSEna9YgzP9pf–OUqvBANosQjepg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1oZuw15uBAxWIj4kEHTfyCDEQ7Al6BAg3EGc&biw=1536&bih=754&dpr=1.25
Supplement:
Sorry I hurt your sensitivity, I could have used Frankenthaler or the most resent: The Famous (ha!!!/ ha!!!) Hunter Biden!!! Please it was just to make a point about Tribes interpretation of the law. A painting on canvas print hangs in my office called [Improvisation 3] by none other than Wassily Kandinsky, (not an original which I couldn’t afford). Reminds me of the years I spent in Northern New Mexico.
You didn’t hurt my “sensitivity,” moron — and I call you MORON because that remark about my “sensitivity” was clearly intended to be a swipe at me for POLITELY pointing out that Kandinsky was a rare and bona fide genius in an art world filled with pretenders. That’s not merely my opinion but rather the opinion of many — maybe even YOU, unless you are in the habit of displaying prints you dislike.
And yes, Hunter Biden would have been a more suitable choice for illustrating an idiot pretending to be an artisf along with millions of others NOT named Wassily Kandinsky.
But meantime, the quality of discourse at this garbage site means that I’m probably the one that doesn’t belong here, so don’t amend your behavior on my account.
“Wassily Kandinsky was an absolute genius…”
Spot on.
Comer says he can make an argument for the president being a ‘ringleader’ of the Biden crime family
https://justthenews.com/accountability/comer-says-he-can-make-argument-president-being-ringleader-biden-crime-family?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
At one time Tribe was considered an eminent Constitutional scholar. Appears he has either decided to chuck it all in hopes that some D will put on SCOTUS or else he is experiencing some type of dementia. Regardless, it is sad to see a man once admired reach such a low level
Nevertheless, Tribe remains the “break the glass” academic for Democratic leaders when political expedience requires a patina of constitutional legitimacy.
Tribe is not interested in textual constitutionalism, he’s interested in what he calls the “dark matter” of an “invisible constitution”. This latter interpretation of constitutional law opens up unlimited opportunities to workaround long-held constitutional protections. Democrats have seized upon this theory to execute their progressive agenda without shame. By the time SCOTUS has the opportunity to rule against them, the damage has already been done. The Judicial branch and especially SCOTUS is currently the “Iron Dome” protecting this country against this “dark” interpretation of constitutional law. How much longer will they be able to stand up to this assault.
“The Judicial branch and especially SCOTUS is currently the “Iron Dome” protecting this country against this “dark” interpretation of constitutional law.”
I’m not so sure, Olly, at least at current initial trial and first appellate levels. The idea of ‘we’ll charge anyone we want and/or do anything we want until SCOTUS says NO’ is accelerating, including within the Judicial branch. Bragg, Smith, and Georgia cases are just exhibits 1 thru 3 for a single defendant. Multiply that by the numbers of people who can’t afford to defend against the ‘dark’ false and frivolous cases where the process is the punishment for NOT committing a crime. Colorado baker, General Flynn and so many others.
I’m not so sure, Olly, at least at current initial trial and first appellate levels.
JAFO, I agree, that is definitely the weakest area of my Iron Dome analogy.
Reading comprehension is certainly not your strong suit is it?
Tribe is an ignorant tool and a lackey to the religion of the left, i.e. totalitarianism.
Ad hominem describes every comment and “legal” maneuver against Trump for challenging the 2020 election.
Nevertheless, Tribe remains the “break the glass” academic for Democratic leaders…
Academic here. Medical Sciences no less. The Academy isn’t what it used to be. Most members are insufferable Dunning–Kruger effect types. If the standard performance metric of “publish or perish” was replaced with “walk and chew gum”, most members of the “Academy” would be out of a job but likely qualify as Members of Congress and “journalists”. Throwing the title of “academic” around is a liability these days
It is instructive that those who spend their time lecturing others, never walk in the midst of their targeted audience
Maui has experienced the worst fire in America in over 100 years where hundreds of people suffered or died and many more lost their homes. Tulsi Gabbard stated yesterday on Joe Rogan show that it would cost ~ $ 4 billion to rebuild those lost homes yet Biden’s administration promised victims a one time payment of $700. the Dept of Defense has once again confessed to undercounting the amount of taxpayer funds they gave to Ukraine, and was subsequently able to give $6 Billion more to the never ending War in Ukraine. According to Tulsi, no one from the local, state nor Federal governments have walked the streets of Lahaina and surrounding areas in Maui, but when she did personally, as it was part of her former Congressional district, locals asked her if they could change their name from Maui to Ukraine to receive billions of dollars to rebuild their homes
If Joe Biden, Larry Tribe, Nancy Pelosi et al had befall them the same fate of Marie Antoinette, one suspects they would throw cake at those building their guillotine
🍰
“Tulsi Gabbard stated yesterday on Joe Rogan show that it would cost ~ $ 4 billion to rebuild those lost homes yet Biden’s administration promised victims a one time payment of $700. “
I hope everyone realizes that most people have fire insurance. I don’t think the federal government exists to pay for rebuilding homes so people can pocket the insurance proceeds.
You prefer we send billions of dollars to people in Ukraine as opposed to Americans in urgent need. Noted.
Stupidity: “You prefer we send billions of dollars to people in Ukraine as opposed to Americans in urgent need. Noted.”
You want people reimbursed twice for their one loss? Do you know what fire insurance is?
Ukraine wasn’t mentioned.
Ignorance litters the blog.
S. Meyer,
Do you know some insurance companies do not include temporary housing while the new home is being built? IIRC, the few remaining insurance companies in CA no longer offer it at all.
Dont know what the case is in Maui but $700 might get them two maybe three nights in a hotel?
Recently read how some people are no longer paying for homeowners insurance as they cannot afford it, their mortgage payment, bills, food, etc. all thanks to Bidenomics.
Bidenomics and other stupid economic decisions made by leftists cause people to become poor while a few elite become rich. Is HI run by conservatives or progressives?
Upstate, there is something known as an insurance rider. People should read the riders. One rider is replacement insurance. It costs more, but adds tremendous benefits especially when prices rise.
Law and ordinance, frequently forgotten, is another important rider because when reconstructing a building the new codes could add tremendous cost. I think most people try to go cheap and are then surprised when they aren’t paid what they thought they would get. It’s better to go with a higher deductible and put the savings in the bank, Even when I was poor I paid attention to insurance and didn’t try to get the least expensive.
The problem in Hawaii is that recent building codes will make it impossible to rebuild based on what the insurance companies pay out. The homeowners will be forced to sell the land to developers if they don’t receive some kind of help. And if their homes burned due to governmental incompetence then that makes a stronger case for the government to get involved in supporting homeowners.
I recently explained law and ordinance to Upstate. If one has that rider, it covers new building codes. That rider can be very valuable. I always include it, along with a few other riders. Make sure you understand every rider in the policy. Generally, they are relatively inexpensive. Basic flood insurance is something people neglect as well and worthwhile.
One pet peeve of mine is blaming the wildfires on “climate change”. As if that absolves the government of any action – if you believe in climate change, then you should expect more wildfires, AND BE PREPARED FOR THEM. They obviously weren’t prepared at all. Hence, they either a) don’t believe their own rhetoric or b) are incompetent idiots. They took no actions to reduce the danger from downed water line, improve evacuation routes and methods, or thin the forest of flammable materials. The whole thing was a clown show.
Estovir,
Well said.
But we have to keep this forever war going on for . . . what was the reason? Ah! Keep the defense contractors stock up.
I have never been to Maui, though I have visited Oahu and the Big Island 3x. I always thought Maui was the really expensive, luxury island, where few but the rich lived.I am learning from the fires that hit Maui that I was wrong. A gym buddy, former US Army Military Police, was stationed in HI for many years, and he told me that Maui’s fire was truly devastating precisely because so many non-rich people live there. As you likely know, Hawaii has the highest cost of living in the USA so $700 one time payment is insulting. As a former homeowner in Miami, insurance policies are very expensive in states surrounded by water, considering I had 3 policies for my bayside home: Flood, Windstorm, Homeowners, totaling $10K/year. Fire Insurance was covered under Homeowners. I could afford these policies but most folks can not. My in-laws live in Dixie County, FL, which just got devastated by Hurricane Idalia. While my in-laws did not get affected too much, that area of Florida has a high poverty rate, typical “Florida Cracker, Hillbilly”, salt of the earth folks like my in-laws. They can’t afford home insurance policies in FL for obvious reasons.
I am guessing Hawaii home insurance polices are as high as Florida or likely higher. So the DoD recently giving Ukraine another $6 billions due to an underpayment from poor accounting methods, is pathetic considering Americans literally out of house and home could use that kind of money to replace their destroyed homes, not least of which it appears it was the government’s fault for ignoring their water system. Tulsi Gabbard stated on Joe Rogan that Maui was known to be the “Venice of the Pacific” at one time. However, big corporations redirected the waters coming from the mountains (rainfall) and piped it to their plantations to supply their crops. Doing so, according to Tulsi, took the natural water supply from the local folks of Maui, the farmers, the fish farms, and indigenous. If true, those corporations should give back the water supply to the people of Maui and replace their homes, because the water that would have been used to fight the fires were stored at the corporate crop plantations and their luxury resorts.
See the interview of Tulsi by Joe Rogan
Estovir, if one wishes to live in a primo area, have substantial property risks, and build a primo house, they will have high insurance costs. I’m sorry poor people can’t live as well as the richest in our society, but people have a choice of how they live and the type of system, socialism or a free market system that produces faster growth in the long term, and raises the standard of living for all.
I have a home in Manhattan. Real Estate taxes are very high there. I have another place in another expensive area with very high taxes also. I choose to live in these areas and thereby have a big tax bill. Trump’s tax law limited how much of my property tax I could deduct. It raised my tax bill substantially. Should I complain that my taxes went up? No! We should not force other people to support our lifestyle, nor should poor people pay for the lifestyle choices of those in any high-rent district.
Along with other areas, I know NYC and Florida real estate and understand the insurance business. Why do people leave the Gold Coast of Florida for the Carolinas, Tennessee, etc.? Because those areas aren’t as expensive. Should they be subsidized for them to remain in the high-rent district? Should their insurance prices fall. Do you wish for the free market or socialism?
(I want you to know that I understand what it is to be poor. I lived in a slum with a total of 15 amps of electricity, and if it blew in the basement, one could do nothing because it was too dangerous to go there. There was a rape-murder the first night my wife and I moved into that slum. I walked everywhere because I didn’t have the funds for public transportation. As a side point, I was happy then and happy now. I worked rather than complained.)
Estovir,
Well said.
Thank you for pointing out the reality of the situation.
Some people just hate poor people.
Upstate, the best help for poor people is a thriving economy where the people have opportunities and good jobs. A thriving economy occurs when the private sector spends most of the money. Every dollar misspent by the government reduces the rate of growth of the economy and interferes with the free market.
The free marketplace should represent crony capitalism, which is increasing along with wealth disparity.
When rules and laws pass, most of the time, small groups of elitists determine the outcome. They look out for themselves and not the benefit of working Americans.
Who stands to benefit the most from inappropriate government spending? Not the poor person. All you have to do is trace the dollars backward.
I’ll provide an example since you are outspoken on the subject. Who is making money funding the Ukraine war? Who is paying for the war?
👏👏
Has anyone noticed the conspicuous absence of Dennis McInlyre? Is it possible that his benefactors have noticed the complete clown that Dick Head has shown him to be, and have cut him off? Or has he been censured for calling multiple commenters racists on several occasions, with no basis whatsoever?
It appears the bug boy has been relegated to posting as some Peterson dude.
As for the radio silence from Gigi…you’re welcome.
Dennis who?
Mr. Head’s satire is rather wicked.
Just scroll past bug. He is not worth commenting to.
Natasha, figure after all the take downs of her delusional TDS alternative reality, she had enough.
I don’t see why name-calling is a bad thing. Sometimes the use of colorful names is the only way to accurately describe someone.
For example, I don’t consider Larry Tribe to be a legal scholar, and it would be absolutely false to call him one. Tribe is simply a DNC mouthpiece and from a “professional” standpoint, Tribe is a Presstitute.
And Tribe is also employed by Harvard, which is a third-rate school that is now best known as the most hostile Leftist Indoctrination Entity (“LIE) to free speech in the United States, if not the World. Naturally, as a third-rate school that hates free speech, Harvard hasn’t produced a single Nobel Prize winner in the real academic disciplines (e.g., economics, medicine, chemistry, etc.) in more than 10 years.
I wonder what happened to Lawrence Tribe. He used to be seen as an eminent legal scholar and now it seems he has lost his way. For me, this is not about his views (he has a right to any of them), but the legal reasoning behind them. He is losing in court over his opinions frequently and more importantly he is dismissive and insulting to other that do not agree with him. As our good professor always notes, people of good faith can have real disagreements.
When one lowers oneself to name calling, they have already lost the discussion and now try to hold onto the narrative. It is a shame watching someone of that status
You under estimate the rancor hidden in the DT hatred. It is that extreme with the so-called Deep State and their supporters. Yes, Virginia, the Deep State exists, and is that strong and that serious. Just ask RFK, Jr.
“why doesn’t he criticize republicans and Trump as forcefully as he does democrats?”
He criticizes law professors and supposed scholars for these kinds of attacks. He knows, as does everyone of stable mind, that they have no place in intellectual discourse. Politics, and politicians, are anything but.
Nice that you agree that Tribe is acting like a political democrat hack, and not a scholar.
Did you not read the part where this column is written for the NYP?
Fighting fire with fire? Tribe behaves like a child in a roomful of adults, demanding attention while the adults politely ignore him.
Larri Tribe & Lorri Lightfoot: It’s no wonder that Harvard came in dead last in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings.
Prof. Turley wrote a column many months ago about the importance of calling thing by their correct names.
Tribe & Lightfoot are Idiots & Harvard is fitting for them, I believe!
I remember a Harvard Grad a decade back or so showing that around 80% of the grads there do not get the high paying jobs that are insinuated they’ll receive for all the debt they take on. I’m not sure of the number.
But hell, most of them didn’t follow Prof Turley’s Blog Of Tort Law either. LOL;)
Yes, I find it funny as Harvard & a bunch of people wearing white lab coats now deserve little respect now for what they’ve became, I, others believe.
“Turley should be sharing the blame . . .”
If you do not grasp the distinction between a premise and a personal attack, your problem is much deeper than the Constitution.
Not only is Tribe a fool and a radical left-wing lawyer gone mad, but he’s also not very learned in the law. Don’t know what Harvard is paying this fool, but whatever it is, it’s way too much. He’s wrong so much that you might as well as the local plumber for an opinion as Tribe. You’d likely get a more reasoned opinion.
Persons such as tribe may assume the title of professor because the field of academia has exchanged the state of competency for the state of woke political correctness as a guide to the conferring that title. What these woke academicians are, in fact, are elite propagandists for the religion of the progressive concept of the perfectibility of mankind through government fiat. And these types are as fanatic, radical and devoted to their “religion” as any islamist jihadist and these prog/leftists will pursue their own agenda for world domination as assuredly committed to that end as any of the 9/11 hijackers.
Tribe is despicable. He is an anti-constitutionalist. He would support the type of regime that historically put people like him in concentration camps or gulags. He is no democrat
I’m hoping all of these persecutions, I’m sorry, prosicutions of Donald Trump keep going right through to September of 2024. All Trump, all the time.
Lawerence Tribe is simply a Fool – he is a radical left wing lawyer gone mad ruining his long legal career by producing out of this earth /universe legal ideas.