Harvard Law Scholar Apologizes for False Post That Charlie Kirk Assassination Suspect Was ‘Ultra-Maga’

A retired Harvard Law professor and distinguished constitutional scholar apologized Sunday for posting the debunked talking point that the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk is an “ultra-MAGA” right-winger.

“My reaction saying he was to Kirk’s right was premature, and I’m sorry I reposted a tweet to that effect before deleting my repost,” Prof. Laurence H. Tribe, a documented critic of President Trump, wrote on his X page.

At Harvard, Tribe’s students and research assistants included, among other legal luminaries, President Barack Obama, Senator Ted Cruz and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Respondents hammered Tribe on social media after sharing on X a post from Occupy Democrats that said suspected assassin Tyler Robinson’s entire family “is hardcore MAGA.”

“Kirk’s apparent assassin seems to have been ultra-MAGA, exploding the GOP/MAGA attempt to pin the blame for this tragedy on liberals,” wrote Tribe in the post, which he has since deleted from his page.

WATCH — Erika Kirk: “You Have No Idea What You Have Just Unleashed”:

Tribe was a professor at Harvard Law School from 1968 until his retirement in 2020. He started his law career clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. His 1978 book American Constitutional Law has been called “core text” on the subject.

In his new X post that went up Sunday morning, Tribe called Kirk’s murder “grotesque” and wrote that “nothing could possibly justify it.”

However, the Tribe did set himself for more criticism by writing, “Those calling the suspected assassin trans, liberal, or a radical leftist are exploiting a tragedy for political gain by making stuff up.”

As Breitbart News reported, in several Sunday shows, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) told hosts that the 22-year-old suspect – according to interviews with people who knew him — had an “ideology very different” from his conservative family.

Robinson, too, was in a “romantic relationship” with a transgender partner, a male transitioning into a female, the governor said.

The partner shared an apartment with Robinson, played a key part in his arrest, and continues to fully cooperate with the investigation, Cox said. In reacting to Tribe’s apologetic post, many respondents remained critical.

Wrote one, under the handle Tzadiknistar, “So it was ok to blame the right when you thought the killer was on the right but now that it’s come to light that his partner and he was a radicle (sic) lefty you ask in people not to politicize it.”

Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.