Republican-appointed jurist Michael Luttig endorses Harris, citing Trump democracy threat
Prominent conservative former Judge Michael Luttig said he will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election, arguing that former President Donald Trump "corrupted America’s Democracy."
Luttig ? who was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit by President George H. W. Bush and was on President George W. Bush's shortlist for a Supreme Court seat ? said he assumed Harris' public policy views "are vastly different" from his own. However, he said that doesn't matter to him when it comes to the upcoming November election.
"I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be," Luttig wrote in the endorsement statement he gave to CNN.
An influential voice among Republicans
Before he became a judge, Luttig worked as a law clerk for Antonin Scalia, then a Republican appointee on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, also a Republican appointee. He worked in the Reagan and first Bush administrations before his judicial appointment.
He was a highly-regarded jurist among conservative intellectuals, and was cited by Vice President Mike Pence when he concluded he didn't have the power to alter the 2020 presidential election votes.
Intentionally or not, Luttig may have helped Trump evade one potential reckoning over attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election when he penned a January, 2021 op-ed in the Washington Post arguing that the U.S. Senate couldn't hold an impeachment trial against Trump after he had left office. Some Republicans cited the former judge's view in arguing against convicting Trump, a move that would have enabled the Senate to prevent the real estate mogul from becoming president again.
Nonetheless, Luttig has consistently argued that Trump attempted to overturn the election results through unlawful means. In the past year, he even backed an effort that failed at the Supreme Court in March to keep Trump off the ballot based on a constitutional provision that bans those who engage in insurrection from holding office.
In his pledge to vote for Harris, Luttig avoided Trump's name, repeatedly referring to the Republican presidential nominee as the "former president" in the nearly five-page statement.
However, the statement focused almost entirely on Trump. Luttig said Trump lost the 2020 election "fair and square," echoing what numerous recounts and audits concluded. Yet millions of Americans still believe it was stolen based on Trump's false claims. Luttig argued that poses a threat to the constitutional order.
"In his utterly inexplicable obsession to this very day to deny, attempt to justify, even to glorify January 6, and to bludgeon Americans into believing that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him when he knows it was not, the former president has corrupted America’s Democracy," Luttig wrote.
The endorsement comes as Harris prepares to give her Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech Thursday at the party's national convention in Chicago. Monday evening, President Joe Biden is slated to speak in the primetime slot.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge Michael Luttig, prominent conservative backs Kamala Harris
