Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig: President Trump Is a ‘National Emergency’

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig called President Donald Trump a “national emergency” following the president’s statement that he was considering declaring a state of emergency regarding the border crisis.

Professor Lessig told MSNBC on Sunday that President Trump himself is a national emergency, and that he is “using words that have no connection to reality.”

“He says we have a national crisis — a national emergency,” said Lessig, “I agree we have a national emergency, but the emergency is this president.”

Senator Bernie Sanders echoed Lessig’s sentiments on Tuesday night, when he accused the president of “creating an emergency” and “artificial crises,” while ignoring that the “biggest crisis of all” which is — according to the senator — actually climate change.

“The emergency is the fact we don’t have an executive who’s exercising his power in a responsible way,” continued Lessig on MSNBC, adding that the president cannot build the border wall without the support of Congress.

“These statutes were certainly not written with the intent to give a man like Donald Trump the power that he’s now claiming,” said Lessig, “but it’s not an efficient process to check him and that’s the uncertainty I think Congress now has to face.”

Professor Lessig is also a progressive activist, who has served on the boards of several groups financed by George Soros, and who offered in 2016 “free and confidential” legal services to members of the Electoral College who would violate state law to vote against then President-Elect Donald Trump.

Harvard University, where Lessig teaches law, is currently under scrutiny for allegedly discriminating against Asian-Americans in the university’s admission process. The Justice Department called Harvard out for its practices in August 2018, and the university has since been dealing with an ongoing lawsuit.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.