Former federal judge warns of danger to American democracy

During the committee’s hearing on Thursday, January 6, retired federal Judge J. Michael Luttig issued a dire warning to the country. Luttig, who advised former Vice President Mike Pence, said that 17 months after the US Capitol riots, “Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.”

Luttig said the United States is at a crossroads similar to the one the country faced during the Civil War, and said the United States needs help.

Luttig was appointed to the federal bank by George HW Bush and served in the Bush and Reagan administrations. He said in his written testimony that the United States is in a “war” for the nation’s democracy and that “only the party that instigated this war can end it,” and called on the Republican Party to begin a reconciliation process.

Speaking to NPR on Saturday, Luttig reiterated his message that lawmakers need to start talking to each other as “fellow Americans who have a shared destiny and shared hopes and dreams for America.” But Republicans must start the process, he added.

Luttig spoke to NPR all things considered about the odds that GOP members will enter these talks in good faith, the pro-Trump candidates currently running for office and whether the Jan. 6 committee hearings can help bridge the gap.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

Do you think there is a significant constituency within your party, meaning the GOP, willing to have good faith conversations about this? And if so, where are they?

Since the day I testified, no, there isn’t one, and there hasn’t been in these two years. I am not a politician, I do not do politics, but that is what I propose to happen. And it is with my fervent hope that some of our elected leaders, at least, listen to the words that I spoke on Thursday and understand what I said, which is that they have an obligation, a great obligation, that they take an oath to act in the interest of the United States and Americans in contrast to their own personal political interests.

If you look at the most recent primaries, pro-Trump candidates are still running across the country and winning on the lie that there was voter fraud in 2020. How does it build trust in our democracy, in the idea that we can get to a better place in our country when there are people at these important high levels who deny the results of the 2020 elections?

It doesn’t and it can’t, which is why I testified Thursday that the former president and his party are today a clear and present danger to American democracy. And I specifically contrasted that with the circumstance, if any, that the former president and the GOP had walked out after the 2020 election and accepted the results. But as I told the select committee on Thursday, that’s not what happened.

To this day, the former president and the GOP have insisted, and continue to claim, that the 2020 election was stolen, and not only that, but they committed to executing the same plan in 2024 that they attempted in 2020. But their whole intention is that if they execute that plan in 2024, they will win in 2024 where they failed in 2020.

The hearings on January 6 are clearly important for the country to understand what happened on that day and why it happened, and I know you feel that way, but many Republicans don’t. They call the audiences an effort to divide. So I wonder if you think they are more likely to close down or further fuel this divide that they say is destroying our democracy?

Well, when I started my statement on the two political parties in the United States, the most important words for me… were that the two political parties in the United States are the political guardians of our democracy. That’s why I went on to say that it is imperative that both parties end this war for democracy and suggest that it was the duty of the Republican Party to begin that reconciliation.

We cannot have any political party in America behaving like the Republican Party has since the 2020 election. As long as that continues, we will have an unstable democratic order in America, and we will always be fighting for American democracy. As I went on to say in my statement, the war for American democracy is not a war that the United States can win.

If the two political parties are going to literally fight over America’s democracy, that’s a never-ending war and it’s destructive to the United States of America. And there isn’t a person in this country who can disagree with that. They can argue about whether, as Republicans have continued to do, the former president’s 2020 activities in the party threatened democracy. They are fools to even suggest that. But you can’t argue with the abstract point, the conceptual point that I made, which is that if the two sides can’t agree to the orderly transfer of power in the United States, then the war will continue, and as long as it continues, we won’t have democracy in the United States.

Do you think that the January 6 hearings that are going on right now could actually break through and encourage politicians to maybe start standing up on this issue?

Well, you know that I am a former judge and lawyer, and to my knowledge, I have never publicly spoken a single word of politics. So consider me cynical about politics and all politicians. Do I think that maybe these audiences can reach some American patriots who are currently our political leaders? I hope with all my heart and soul that the hearings reach those political leaders.