(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law professor and mentor to former President Barack Obama, was forced to delete a tweet in which he accused Fox News host Tucker Carlson—and the “GOP’s Trump wing” generally—of treason for refusing to engage in warmongering over the Ukraine–Russia affair.
Laurence Tribe has now deleted his original tweet as well as his follow-up. pic.twitter.com/hPPZ5cJ49s
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) February 21, 2022
“Since the day that Donald Trump became president, Democrats in Washington have told you it’s your patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin,” Carlson said on Tuesday. “Anything less than hatred for Putin is treason.”
As if to prove Carlson’s point, Tribe immediately fired off the following since-deleted tweet:
“Led by Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, the GOP’s Trump wing appears to be throwing its weight behind Putin,” Tribe wrote. “If Putin opts to wage war on our ally, Ukraine, such ‘aid and comfort’ to an ‘enemy’ would appear to become ‘treason’ as defined by Article III of the U.S. Constitution.”
Polls show that more than 70% of Americans oppose major US involvmenet in the Ukraine–Russia standoff as the country faces many of its own self-inflicted crises under the current Biden administration.
After his comment caused an uproar—with even the anti-Trump David French objecting—Tribe offered another since-deleted tweet in which he claimed he did not mean what he plainly said:
“I’m persuaded by those who thought I meant to be using the word ‘treason’ literally—despite my use of the phrase ‘would appear to be’—that I should’ve been more careful,” Tribe conceded. “Because we’re not at war with Russia, treason prosecutions should be off the table.”
Suggesting that Carlson’s criticism of the administration fit the textbook definition of treason—as Tribe asserted—might, at best, impugn his claim to be a pre-eminent legal scholar and, at worst, meet the textbook definition of defamation.
However, Tribe’s insane and libelous tweets may not have surprised anyone familiar with his public persona. The TDS-afflicted elitist has produced a laundry list of spittle-flecked rhetorical gaffes rivaled only by his beloved President Joe Biden.
In July 2016, Tribe accused President Trump of “treason” for joking that he’d “love to see” Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.
In November 2017, Tribe called Trump “subconsciously antisemitic” after the president hilariously dubbed disgraced Democrat Sen. Al Franken, “Al Frankenstein.”
In May 2018, Tribe told the disgraced Chris Cuomo that Democrats had to “shoot to kill” Trump when it came to impeachment.