Trump is committing a federal crime if he continues to pretend he's president: Harvard Law professor

On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe suggested that lame-duck President Donald Trump could be guilty of a federal crime if he continues to refuse the peaceful transition of power following his election loss.

"There's nothing that Pompeo or Trump or any of those guys can do to prevent Biden from becoming the president," said Tribe. "On January 20, at high noon, he becomes the president of the United States when he takes the oath. And any Trump administration official, including the president himself, who pretends to have power under the executive branch after that point is committing a federal felony, punishable by imprisonment, in addition to any other crimes they might have committed. It's as though he's going to build an alternative White House in Mar-a-Lago, and he will pretend to be president even though he's not."

"When you look through all the cases they're mounting, every challenge out there, do you see any legal challenge that the president could pursue right now that would change the outcome of this election?" asked anchor Erin Burnett.

"Absolutely not," said Tribe. "And to say that he hasn't succeeded is an understatement. He's 0 for 12 in the cases that I've counted. I've read the complaints. There's nothing there. There's no there, there ... it is the arguments that they're advancing that are fraudulent. And, yes, they have a theoretical right to go to court, to waste money going to court. But it's not going to get anywhere. I think the reason that all of these Republicans are going over the cliff like lemmings is that they seem to think that even out of office, Trump will have some hold over them. Maybe he will start a news network, and they want to go be guests on the Trump show, who knows. But they certainly are not going to have any influence over what actually happens. Trump is simply like a petulant child, refusing to admit he's lost."

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