Law Professor Says Insanity Defense Is Trump's Only Hope

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe suggested on Twitter that the only path forward for Donald Trump might be if his legal team is able to use an insanity defense at trial (if a criminal trial happens.) Tribe's comments were picked up by media outlets, causing Tribe to make it clear that he was being sarcastic, but this isn't the first time that an expert has raised the idea of Trump pleading insanity. Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Late last week, Donald Trump released a video on Truth Social where he attacked the good members of Congress on the January 6th committee when they released their final report on Sunday. Responding to that video that had been posted by Patriot takes on Twitter, Harvard Law Professor Lawrence tribe, said this about that video clip. If this is the defense at Trump's forthcoming trial, I don't envy the lawyers who agree to represent him. They'd better be psychiatrist experts at reflective projection and capable of getting their client to plead insanity. So what tribe is suggesting in this tweet is that Donald Trump's only hope if he does have to go for a criminal trial, is an insanity defense. Now, on Tuesday morning, tribe came out because obviously this tweet at from a Harvard law professor got picked up in the media and he's like, Hey, kind of thought everybody understood I was being sarcastic and wasn't speaking literally, but hey, whatever.

So tribe wasn't saying like, Hey, he has to plead insanity. It was, especially for those of you who follow Lawrence tribe and know how he is, like it was sarcastic. But here's the thing, even as a sarcastic comment, tribe is not even the first legal expert to suggest that Trump's only path to victory at a criminal trial might be pleading insanity. Couple months ago, I believe it was, uh, October, you had Neil Kacha, a former Justice Department official who said, quote, I can't see it in any legal way helping him unless he's trying to go for the insanity defense of which this paper seems, you know, to be some evidence of. And that, of course, was Trump's 14 page response to being subpoenaed by the January 6th select committee. So now we have, whether serious or not sarcastic, whatever, multiple legal experts top of their fields, guys who know, uh, constitutional law, criminal law, better than anybody openly suggesting again, whether joking or not, doesn't matter at this point, but talking about the insanity defense for Donald Trump. So the question is, is that something that could work? And I think these legal experts would agree with No, no, it won't. Donald Trump is of sound, mind and body, though we may not always think so. He is the man is not insane. He could be, you know, we don't have test results of any of this. I don't think they've done any

Tests. There could be some cognitive problems there. Maybe there's, you know, a, a, a hint of dementia. I don't know. We wouldn't know that without the tests, which of course would have to be conducted if they want to go with this defense. But do you think for a second Donald Trump would let anyone other than you know, his wacko doctors, the man, woman person, camera TV thing, um, do you think he would let anybody with serious medical training do a cognitive function test on him? The answer is no. And without that test, you're not going to be able to prove that this man is not of sound, mind and body. And let's face it, he says crazy things all the time, but saying crazy things all the time doesn't make you clinically insane when it comes to criminal defense. It was very clear and obvious with all the evidence put forward by the January 6th committee that he knew well what he was doing.

Yes, it was all based on lies, but there's also indication that he knew these were lies, but wanted to do it anyway. Again, that doesn't make a person mentally unwell, it just makes them a. So, insanity defense, no defense. He can try it, but it's probably not gonna work. And unfortunately, all of this could be moot from the outset because none of this will even matter if Donald Trump doesn't get indicted. So let's hope that happens because I do think Donald Trump is gonna have an uphill battle trying to defend himself with any charges he may be hit with. But I guarantee you it'll be a hell of a show and it's gonna be a lot of fun to watch what his lawyers try to come up with if he does get hit with criminal charges. And that's a big if.