Former federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig advised Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 that the VP had no authority to reject electors. Ryan Lizza, co-author of the Playbook, spent four hours interviewing Luttig in February for a Deep Dive episode that focused mostly on his unprecedented role counselling Mike Pence on January 6.
We went back through what was left on the cutting room floor to create a new show that goes deep on who Luttig is and where he comes from, which will help you understand why this lifelong right-winger is saying what he’s saying now about the threat to democracy.
Given the interest in Luttig this week, we went back through what was left on the cutting room floor to create a new show that goes deep on who Luttig is and where he comes from, which will help you understand why this
Excerpts from that conversation have been transcribed and adjusted for length and readability.
Concerns raised by Luttig about the Trump administration
Ryan Lizza (Ryan): What were the most disturbing instances of Trump’s presidency that led you to where you are now?
J. Michael Luttig: The alarms, as they have for the most of my life, fall into the dual camps of politics and law. So, you know, during the 2016 presidential campaign. If Mr. Trump was elected, I was extremely concerned about the country’s future.
And then, once he was elected, I watched everything unfold in real time, often involving close friends of mine and frequently involving subjects that I had thought about my entire life and held a firm, principled position on. Then there was the matter of the office’s behaviour, which was distasteful to me as it was to so many others.
Barr’s legal analysis and criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller, according to Luttig
Ryan Lizza (Ryan): To go back to the beginning, how did you feel about Bill Bar’s legal analysis of the special counsel, which he delivered to the Trump administration in 2018, and his opinion that Mueller had overstepped his authority?
J. Michael Luttig: My name is J. Michael Luttig, and I’m OK. So, I assumed you were asking about his statement on Rod Rosenstein’s resistance to the release of the redacted Mueller report, right?
Ryan Lizza: Of course. Let’s talk about that because it’s a significant issue.
J. Michael Luttig: You know, that was a big one. All of this could be considered a watershed moment for Bill Barr, which is why I’d like to respond.
That’s right, I was. Let’s get that out of the way first. Yes, I was approached by a number of media outlets to comment on that statement because there was a clamour that he had deceived the people and Congress, and that everyone had distorted the Mueller report.
And, as you know, and as I would tell your listeners, It’s impossible for me to imagine how anyone could have expressed, defined, and summarised the Mueller Report better at that moment than he did.
Read more:-
- Opinion | I’m fed up with politics in the United States
- If You Have a Side Hustle, Your Estimated Taxes Are Due Today Sarah Szczypinski headshot
- Trump Fans Are Outraged by Reports That Kimberly Guilfoyle Was Paid $60k by Donors to Introduce Her Boyfriend at a Rally on January 6th
Remember, the public was clamouring for their report, but redacting secret information would take, you know, a week or two.
So, you know, Bill wasn’t required to do this, but he decided to do it because the country demanded it, and he did. And it couldn’t have been more precise, pinpoint flawless as a summation, a high-level description of what was most important to America at the time.
