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Judge Michael Luttig On Donald Trump, Laurence Tribe, and the Law
“What Nixon did was just an ordinary crime,” Luttig says. “What Trump has done is quite arguably the worst crime against the United States that a president could commit.”
Luttig sees “ample evidence” of criminal activity and believes Trump will be indicted. But he has been judicious about not calling for an indictment. Instead, in his professorial manner, he’s been laying out the factors that he believes should be considered by Attorney General Merrick Garland (yet another close acquaintance, of course, from their time as federal judges).
When he posts them on social media, he’s come to expect that his friend, renowned liberal legal scholar Laurence Tribe, will retweet or reply with exactly what Luttig has been careful not to say — that Trump should be indicted. The ideological opposites struck up a correspondence, bonded by their mutual resolve that Trump is a threat to democracy, Tribe says. (They’re also working together on a multibillion-dollar tax case for Coca-Cola, where Luttig is a special adviser to the board.)
As Luttig sees it, the decision about indicting Trump should also take into account whether it would “split the nation,” given the certainty that Trump would put up a years-long fight against any charges and the worldwide “spectacle” that would ensue.
Even if an indictment never materializes, Luttig now believes the nation is ready to relegate Trump and Trumpism to irrelevancy. The former president’s political future was dealt triple blows, Luttig says, by his recent assertion that parts of the Constitution should be “terminated” to return him to office, the criminal referrals by the Jan. 6 committee and the failure of his favored candidates in the 2022 midterm elections. He calls it “the beginning of the end of Donald Trump.”
Still, he says, the mission of vanquishing Trump — and thus, in Luttig’s mind, saving American democracy — is not entirely complete. “Donald Trump has proven that the only thing that can stop him is the law,” he says.
But if there’s anything J. Michael Luttig places faith in, it’s the law.
Luttig sees “ample evidence” of criminal activity and believes Trump will be indicted. But he has been judicious about not calling for an indictment. Instead, in his professorial manner, he’s been laying out the factors that he believes should be considered by Attorney General Merrick Garland (yet another close acquaintance, of course, from their time as federal judges).
When he posts them on social media, he’s come to expect that his friend, renowned liberal legal scholar Laurence Tribe, will retweet or reply with exactly what Luttig has been careful not to say — that Trump should be indicted. The ideological opposites struck up a correspondence, bonded by their mutual resolve that Trump is a threat to democracy, Tribe says. (They’re also working together on a multibillion-dollar tax case for Coca-Cola, where Luttig is a special adviser to the board.)
As Luttig sees it, the decision about indicting Trump should also take into account whether it would “split the nation,” given the certainty that Trump would put up a years-long fight against any charges and the worldwide “spectacle” that would ensue.
Even if an indictment never materializes, Luttig now believes the nation is ready to relegate Trump and Trumpism to irrelevancy. The former president’s political future was dealt triple blows, Luttig says, by his recent assertion that parts of the Constitution should be “terminated” to return him to office, the criminal referrals by the Jan. 6 committee and the failure of his favored candidates in the 2022 midterm elections. He calls it “the beginning of the end of Donald Trump.”
Still, he says, the mission of vanquishing Trump — and thus, in Luttig’s mind, saving American democracy — is not entirely complete. “Donald Trump has proven that the only thing that can stop him is the law,” he says.
But if there’s anything J. Michael Luttig places faith in, it’s the law.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/01/31/michael-luttig-judge-jan-6-trump-pence/
He's still watching Trump. Even Judge Luttig says that national upheaval might be the only valid reason (as was used by Ford re Nixon) for not indicting. Don't think Trump's not watching for any out he can get, no matter what damage it does to the country.
But all the more does Trump -- by his recent repost and endorsement of a violent "locked and LOADED" message (on TruthSocial) -- prove Luttig's earlier claim under oath that Trump and his allies are a clear and present danger.
So Smith & Garland probably would just as well suffer short term damage to the country than the even worse long term damage to rule of law, and the end of democracy, if they didn't indict.
Likely Smith & Garland will indict, and not just because Luttig and Tribe support Trump's indictment.
(Dang, can't believe he's younger than I.
)
9 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
The nation is already divided!
"Luttig now believes the nation is ready to relegate Trump and Trumpism to irrelevancy."
Does he own a television set?
The MSM NEVER stops talking about him!
More quizling bullshit from someone who's position will exempt him from suffering any of the fallout from MAGA "governance".
I know your beef's not with me. 
I can't agree that he's "magical thinking."
And I can't believe that what he's come to know about MAGA hasn't touched his legal side. Or he wouldn't have referred to them in his Jan 6 testimony. Remember what he took pains to say about them?
Donald Trump and allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.
That’s not because of what happened on January 6. It’s because to this very day the former president, his allies and supporters, pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.
I would have never spoken those words ever in my life except that that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us, as I said in that New York Times op ed wherein I was speaking about the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The former president and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 in open and plain view of the American public. I repeat, I would never have uttered one single one of those words unless the former president and his allies were candidly and proudly speaking those exact words to America.
That’s not because of what happened on January 6. It’s because to this very day the former president, his allies and supporters, pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.
I would have never spoken those words ever in my life except that that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us, as I said in that New York Times op ed wherein I was speaking about the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The former president and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 in open and plain view of the American public. I repeat, I would never have uttered one single one of those words unless the former president and his allies were candidly and proudly speaking those exact words to America.
He knows. Don't think because he's not seeming to watch what you watch, that he has not said publicly, under sworn testimony, the very thing you're talking about.
When these old white men of jurisprudence start acting up and speaking out... fully... and without reservation, is when I'll respect them.
I have to think your "quisling" is misplaced, because I know you know that he and Tribe are publicly speaking out and supporting everything Smith & Garland are doing. Smith & Garland are paying attention, imo.
And the rule of law constitutionalists will win against the Trumps, Jinpings, Kochs, Putins, and other MAGA authoritarians. That win of this yearslong massive constitutional war will not just win 2024 for us, not just be landmark, but live in human history. The world -- and even Davos Man -- is watching.
