A well-known law professor from Harvard faced backlash on social media for suggesting the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination was affiliated with an “ultra magazine” and claimed Republicans were trying to deflect blame onto liberals after the incident.
Lawrence Tribe, who served at Harvard Law School until his retirement in 2020, commented on a lengthy post from an account called Occupator that analyzed the political beliefs of the suspect, Tyler Robinson.
Tribe suggested, “Kirk’s alleged assassin was Ultra Magazine, which seems to have bolstered GOP/MAGA’s efforts to shift responsibility for this tragedy onto liberals.”
Robinson, aged 22, was reportedly in a relationship with a transgender partner, as confirmed by a senior FBI official. It’s noted that he had transitioned to a woman and shared an apartment in St. George, Utah.
Kirk was shot while engaging with students during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University last Wednesday. At the time of the shooting, a question was raised about the number of transgender Americans involved in mass shootings.
In response to Tribe’s comments, Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, accused him of disseminating “pure” disinformation by labeling Robinson as a Trump supporter.
Carl remarked, “There’s nothing to see here—a long-time Harvard professor, considered one of the leading legal scholars of his time, spreading complete falsehoods about Kirk’s assassin from a clearly unreliable source.”
Tribe’s background includes involvement in various presidential administrations. Notably, President Biden chose him in 2021 for a position on the U.S. Supreme Court presidential committee, while President Obama previously appointed him as the first senior counselor for access to justice.
Attempts to reach Tribe and Harvard for comments went unanswered.
The Occupational Democrats group, described as “the #1 democratic organization on social media,” characterized Robinson as “a volatile homemade white man with firearms,” and labeled his family as “hardcore magazines” and “city conservative gun nuts.”
Utah’s Republican Governor Spencer Cox referred to the murder as a “political assassination,” noting that Robinson’s family indicated he had become more politically active in recent years.
Moreover, some Democratic groups sought to connect markings found on bullet casings near the suspect’s firearms to “white nationalists” and popular video games.
One casing featured the inscription “Heyfascist! Catch!” which seemed inconsistent with a left-wing message and instead linked it to a popular game. Another casing included various arrows and phrases like “Notice” and “Bella Ciao Bella Ciao Ciao,” referencing an anti-fascist song from World War II.
