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‘Gross Abuse’: Merrick Garland’s Former Constitutional Law Professor Is Now Blasting Him
Attorney General Merrick Garland is under fire from the left, and now, even from his own former Harvard constitutional law professor, after Special Counsel Robert Hur’s final report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents included what experts say were partisan remarks about the President that violated Dept. of Justice practice.
“Merrick Garland will be one of the greatest Attorneys General in American history, bar none. As my brilliant con law student, a principled prosecutor, and later a superb DC Circuit judge, he has displayed integrity, courage, fair-mindedness, and humanity,” wrote Laurence Tribe, on January 6, 2021, upon the announcement Biden would appoint Garland as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
Now a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, Tribe taught constitutional law at Harvard Law for decades. In addition to Garland, among his most famous students and research assistants are Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Jamie Raskin, and Adam Schiff.
Tribe appears to have since soured on his former student’s leadership of the U.S. Dept. of Justice.
On Sunday, Tribe pointed to this passage from a Politico article: “The president believes the special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents went beyond his remit. And part of the blame is being placed on the AG.”
READ MORE: ‘Treason’: Top Constitutional Expert Warns on Trump’s Attack on NATO
Tribe added, “As it should be. I’ve long respected my friend and former student Merrick Garland but he has bent too far backwards in order to avoid seeming pro-Biden.”
Tribe also cited an Associated Press report from Sunday: “Bob Bauer, as Biden’s personal lawyer, rightly ‘raised concerns over the inclusion of these details to both Hur and Garland.’ Garland should’ve granted Bauer’s appeal because Hur’s report violated DOJ ‘norms that work to avoid prejudicing the public against people who are not charged with a crime.'”
On Friday, professor of law, frequent MSNBC legal analyst, and former top DOJ official Andrew Weissmann wrote, “It was entirely foreseeable Rob Hur would pull a Comey in his report. Garland was [100%] right to have appointed a Special Counsel but wrong to pick Hur and to think only a Republican could fit the bill.”
Tribe responded: “It’s time we invented a verb for that kind of move. I propose we call it ‘garlanding’ or ‘pulling a garland.'”
On Sunday, Tribe reposted video of former Judge of the United States Court of Appeals, J. Michael Luttig repeatedly calling the Hur report “an abuse of power.” Tribe commented: “It was indeed. A gross abuse, and one the Attorney General should have intervened to correct.”
This is not the first time Tribe has criticized Garland. There are more than half-a-dozen times Tribe directly or indirectly leveled criticism at the Attorney General, largely surrounding what some see as an extremely lengthy delay in bringing criminal charges against Donald Trump.
For example, Tribe pulled this quote from this piece: “The languid pace at which AG Merrick Garland pursued January 6 cases must count as a but-for cause of the overlap between the litigation calendar and the political calendar.”
“He just needs to step on the accelerator,” Tribe wrote in August of 2022.
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In November of 2022, Tribe wrote: “Good morning, Merrick Garland. You awake?”
Just days later: “Yes. Time’s up, DOJ. I know that Merrick Garland, who has devoted his life to the rule of law, will do the right thing. But that requires him to indict now. Even waiting till the Dec. 6 runoff would be wrong, and there’s no excuse for delaying things by naming a special counsel.”
One year ago in February: “If AG Garland isn’t interested in how the Barr/Durham Crime spree has perverted justice and degraded DOJ, then the Department’s IG should follow the smelly trail and expose its putrid source.”
In June of last year: “Great journalism has shown Garland and Monaco well-intentioned but profoundly unwise in slow-walking the investigation into Trump and those around him. Their fear of looking political backfired badly. Whether the harm was irreparable remains to be seen.”
The following month: “The J6 House Committee is the reason AG Garland was finally forced to appoint Special Counsel Jack Smith. Without the great work of that Committee, Merrick Garland might’ve hemmed and hawed forever.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
