Melania Trump issued a scathing response to the professor who invoked her son’s name in the impeachment hearings on Wednesday. Barron Trump was mentioned by Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan, who spoke as a witness for House Democrats. To the first lady, it was over the line to draw a 13-year-old into politics.
“A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it,” the first lady tweeted on Wednesday.
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The angry tweet followed the testimony Karlan gave earlier in the day, where she mentioned Barron in an analogy about the president’s conception of his executive power.
“The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility, so while the President can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron,” Karlan said.
Karlan did apologize later on, acknowledging that Barron has little to do with the impeachment hearing of President Trump’s alleged wrong doing.
“I want to apologize for what i said earlier about the President’s son, it was wrong of me to do that. I wish the President would apologize, obviously, for the things he’s done that’s wrong, but I do regret having said that,” she said.
However, other users felt that Karlan had not over-stepped and responded to Melania Trump by pointing out occasions when the president himself had invoked underage children in his rhetoric.
“Sure, right, now address the children who have been stolen from their parents and incarcerated and killed or we will all know you’re saying this in complete bad faith,” tweeted immigration reporter Brooke Binkowski.
“What did FLOTUS say when her HUSBAND mocked [Greta Thunberg]?” added another user.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham defended the first lady’s post in a statement published by CNN.
“I think Mrs. Trump’s tweet speaks very clearly for itself,” she said.
Even during the cross-examination Karlan got backlash from Republican representatives, such as Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida.
“Let me also suggest that when you invoke the President’s son’s name here, when you try to make a little joke out of referencing Barron Trump, that does not lend credibility to your argument. It makes you look mean,” Gaetz said to Karlan. “It makes you look like you’re attacking someone’s family, the minor child of the president of the United States.”
Wednesday marked the first new session in the impeachment inquiry since before Thanksgiving.
