Judge J. Michael Luttig

flarider
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2/18/2022 12:48pm
If you know law and people in it, his name should be sort of familiar.
He's been at the top of the legal and GOP food chain for decades.



For most of his life, J. Michael Luttig has operated behind the scenes at the top of the conservative legal world. He started his career as a young aide at the U.S. Supreme Court, worked as an attorney in the Reagan White House, clerked for Judge Antonin Scalia before he was a legal icon, helped guide the appointment of two other Supreme Court justices, and was appointed to a federal judgeship by President George H.W. Bush.

During Luttig’s time on the bench, one of his clerks was a young attorney named John Eastman. In recent months, Eastman’s name has become inextricably tied to the legal advice he offered to then-President Donald Trump in December 2020 and January 2021: In a now-infamous legal memo, Eastman argued that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the ability to discard certified electoral votes from contested states — a notion that has been roundly debunked, but which Trump’s closest allies clung to (and which helped to inspire some of his supporters to storm the Capitol in rage).

That story is, by now, well known. But there’s another part of the story — one that hasn’t been told until now.

Today, in his first in-depth interview on the topic, Luttig shares the story of those days before the insurrection, when he was unknowingly enlisted to help Pence reject Trump’s efforts on Jan. 6.


For “Playbook Deep Dive,” Ryan Lizza talks with Luttig about his advice to Pence then, what needs to be done to rewrite the Electoral Count Act now, and why he’s choosing this moment to make his legal commentary loud, clear and very public — in panel discussions and op-eds in publications like The New York Times.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-untold-story-of-the-former-ju…
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flarider
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2/18/2022 1:06pm
A young Ted Cruz used to clerk for him as well
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tunedlength
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2/21/2022 9:29am
Michael clerked for Thomas at one point.
flarider
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2/21/2022 9:46am Edited Date/Time 2/21/2022 9:47am
Yes.

Fascinating story -

Apparently after Pence met with Trump on Jan 5th, Pence's staff called Luttig and explained, loosely, what was happening in "what ifs"

What if the VP did this? Could a VP do that?

At the end, the staffer told him to put it in writing and to get into the public. He asked how. "You have Twitter? There you go"

"I have an account, but don't know how to use it."

Figure it out

Got help from his son, wrote the "whys" and "why nots" to the scenarios presented and tweeted it.

No explanation, just a legal analysis on something crazy, that to everyone else seemed "out of the blue"

His phone rang within a few seconds of hitting send from the press. He STFU

Jan 6 happened, and VP Pence quoted Fmr Judge Luttig's Tweet in his reasoning why he could not go through with what Trump wanted.

Next day, says he was in a UPS store and his phone rang, said spam, but for some reason he answered and it was a woman who said "Please hold for the vice president" and he said he bolted out of the store to his car to have some privacy, and the VP thanked him

Have a listen

He doesn't shit on anyone.
His wife doesn't like Trump, but that's only a funny line
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The Shop

IWreckALot
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2/22/2022 7:10am
So the VP and staff took their legal advice from Twitter? Was it "the" Twitter, or like legalTwitter.com. Like the blatantly left leaning Twitter? Cool.
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