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A distinguished Harvard Law professor and legal scholar was hammered on social media after spreading a debunked rumor that the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination was “ultra-MAGA” and that Republicans were trying to “blame” liberals for the tragedy.
Laurence Tribe made the comment in a post on X that shared a lengthy post from an account called Occupy Democrats, which attempted to paint a picture of suspect Tyler Robinson’s political ideology.
“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, a professor at Harvard Law School from 1968 until his retirement in 2020. He is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus at the school.
Robinson, 22, was in a “romantic relationship” with a transgender partner, senior-level FBI officials confirmed to Fox News Digital. The officials said Robinson lived with the unnamed person, who is a male transitioning to a female, and that they shared an apartment in Saint George, Utah.
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Laurence Tribe, a distinguished Harvard Law professor and legal scholar, spread a debunked rumor that the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination was “ultra-MAGA.” (Laurence Tribe / X @tribelaw)
Kirk was killed Wednesday at Utah Valley University, where he was speaking to students at a Turning Point USA event on its campus in Orem. Moments before Robinson allegedly shot Kirk, someone asked Kirk if he knew how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters.
Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at Claremont Institute, responded to Tribe’s post on X, accusing the professor of spreading “pure” disinformation by sharing the claim that Robinson was a supporter of President Donald Trump.
Laurence Tribe visits 92nd Street Y to discuss “What The Constitution Means To Me” on July 28, 2019, in New York City. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)
“Nothing to see here— just a longtime Harvard Law prof— arguably the most prominent legal academic of his generation— spewing absolute lies about Kirk’s assassin from one of the most notorious fake news sites out there,” Carl wrote.
Tribe, who taught at Harvard for 30 years, has been involved with multiple presidential administrations. Most recently, President Joe Biden chose him in 2021 to serve on his Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, Tribe’s Harvard bio notes. In 2010, President Barack Obama selected Tribe to be the first Senior Counselor for Access to Justice.
Fox News Digital reached out to Tribe and Harvard for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
The Occupy Democrats group, which calls itself the “#1 Democratic organization on social media,” tried to paint Robinson as “an unstable homegrown white man with access to firearms” through describing his family as “hardcore MAGA” and “run-of-the-mill conservative gun nuts.”
Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called the killing a “political assassination” on Friday, telling reporters that a family member had turned in Robinson. Cox said the family member told investigators that “Robinson had become more political in recent years.”
The booking photos for Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect in the Utah assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Utah Gov. Spencer Cox)
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The Democratic group also tried to link the messages etched into bullet casings found near the suspect’s weapon to a “white nationalist” and video games.
Of one casing engraved with the message, “Hey fascist! Catch!,” the group claimed the inscription “does not appear to be a left-wing ‘antifa’ message” and tried to connect it to a popular video game.
A memorial for Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk is seen at Utah Valley University, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025, in Orem, Utah. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
The other etchings included the phrases “Notices,” “bulges,” “OWO,” “what’s this?,” “Bella ciao bella ciao ciao,” “If you read this, you are gay LMAO” and a series of arrows, one pointing up, one pointing to the right and three pointing down.
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“Bella Ciao” is an anti-fascist song popularized by left-wing Italian partisans during World War II, according to the New York Post.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.