Prof. Laurence Tribe on IRS Targeting

Last week Harvard law professor Larry Tribe sent out a tweet brusquely dismissing the IRS targeting episode as a debunked non-scandal. I and others promptly took issue with him, and pointed him toward the August 5 D.C. Circuit opinion laying out the scandal’s genuineness. (I also referenced my Ricochet article summarizing the decision and citing the Inspector General report from Treasury.)

Dear Prof. @tribelaw: the 8/5 D.C. Circuit ruling affirming the IRS targeting scandal as only too genuine is here: https://t.co/ucd9vyg55v

— Walter Olson (@walterolson) August 18, 2016

Within an hour or two Prof. Tribe sent this tweet very graciously conceding error, along with several similar.

@walterolson I confess error wrt IRS ideological targeting. The IG report and the CADC panel decision seem right to me. Inexcusable abuse.

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) August 18, 2016

I have on occasion had my differences with Prof. Tribe’s views, but what an honorable example he sets here. May all of us prove equally ready to re-examine our own views when challenged [cross-posted and slightly adapted from Overlawyered].

P.S. If word of the D.C. Circuit panel decision has not gotten around as widely as it should, one reason is that some major news organizations have still, nearly three weeks later, not seen fit to cover it.