Judge Michael Luttig: A Betrayal of America

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is March twenty eighth two thousand twenty three. Interesting little footnote that probably only only I keep track of, it was I actually have to do the math now. It was seven years ago today.

Almost exactly at this moment. I am sitting in my studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on WTMJ, and my producer says, Donald Trump is calling into your show, which was weird because if he’d spent about ten seconds weeding about anything that I had been doing. He would know that I was never Trump, but the theory was. And for the next seventeen minutes, we had I would say a rather candid and tough exchange of views. In many ways, that was a turning point for me, I think.

The good news is that back then, it it looked like perhaps Wisconsin was going to be a speed bump for Donald Trump and he lost Wisconsin. By double digits to avoid people Ted Cruz who is not the ideal fit for Wisconsin politics, but people in Wisconsin let’s put his way. People in Wisconsin were not buying what Donald Trump was selling around the country, and they were willing to vote for anyone that they thought could stop him. And so I’m kind of having flashbacks because in twenty twenty three, I’m getting a lot of twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen vibes. We have a very, very special guest today.

Many of you will remember him from the January sixth hearing. Judge Michael Luedig is a former judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit where he served for a decade and a half and he was frequently mentioned as a potential supreme court nominee during the Bush years and he sent more than forty clerks into supreme court clerkships and they were known as litigators. Which by the way is terrible judge, Mudig. That’s a terrible phrase.

I I agree, Charlotte.

Okay. And one of those clerks was Ted Cruz. So we’ll come back to that in a moment. Thanks for joining me, judge. I appreciate it very much.

It’s my pleasure, Charlie Sykes be honest with you. Thank you for inviting me. So

you have been described as one of the most celebrated legal minds of your generation and you played a really consequential role for the nation, both as as a judge and a retired judge. And you had a long term relationship with clerking for the late justice, Antonin Scalia, they’ve federal appeals court and the Washington Post described your relationship as more than mentor, mentee, more than a a friendship because There was a time when when you and judge Scalia were just integral parts of this conservative judicial movement. And I know you’ve given a lot of thought to this. What does it mean to be a judicial conservative in this particular age right now?

Well, first off, Charlie Sykes know, you you can’t. Believe anything you read in the newspapers. Originally, you know, justice scalia was my boss and mentor. And then over time, we became, you know, fast friends. But from the time we first met, we were ideologically and juris potentially more important aligned as to what law is and and what it is not, what law ought to be, and what it is not.

And aligned most importantly at that time in our lives on the proper role of judges in in interpreting the constitution and laws of the United States. To your ultimate question there, I think that it was much different than than it is today to be a legal and judicial conservative. I attributed to the politicization of the law and the courts that has been proceeding apace for the past twenty five years, but that was accelerated in the past decade. And so as you know, I I’ve been trying to resist that politicization of the law and the courts for many years now, largely unsuccessfully. But this issue of the rule of law has come to a head now in America beginning on January six, twenty twenty one.

If if not before, because January sixth in the events of of that fateful day were an unprecedented attack if you will, on the constitution and the rule of law as well as an unprecedented attack on American democracy. Well,

let’s go back to that. In fact, let’s go back a couple of days earlier because this is really an extraordinary moment and you can, you know, look back and think, okay, well, that night was a turning point. Let’s go back to January fourth two thousand twenty one, two days before the the insurrection. Again, relying on what the newspaper reported, you can correct this. You were eating dinner when a longtime friend and attorney who was serving as outside counsel to Mike Pence, the vice president, called you.

Telling you that another attorney was telling Pence that he had the authority to block certification of the election result. And, of course, that other attorney who was giving him that that terrible device was John Eastman who you also know because he clerked for you. And your wife turned to you and said, oh my god, you have to stop. This. So you’re at dinner and among the many good life decisions you have made, you are not a regular on Twitter, but you felt you needed to say something.

Can you tell me what happened then? How that series of tweets went out that that arguably had one of the most consequential impacts on American political history over over the last several years. So January fourth, you’re at dinner, you get this call, you have to do something. What happened? Tell me the story.

Yeah.

The best decision I ever made in my life, Charlie was marrying my wife Elizabeth. And, of course, she forty plus years later was was and and and is today an an integral part of the of this story. Elizabeth Dyer having dinner in in Colorado at the time, two hours, you know, behind Washington and Richard Cullen who who was a a a long time and to your friend called and and really just to ask me what I knew about John Eastman and and I told him you know, what what I knew about John and thought about John. And then I asked, well, why are you calling? And he said, well, you don’t know, do you?

And I said, no, I don’t. And he said, you know, John is advising the former president and the former vice president that the vice president Pence can essentially overturn the twenty twenty presidential election two days, then on January sixth. Upon hearing this, I said to Richard, well, you can tell the vice president that that he has no such power under the constitution and laws of the United States and that it would be catastrophic for America, worried to attempt to overturn the election, you know, on January sixth. Upon hearing that, Richard said, I’ve already told the vice president that that’s your view. And I said, well, okay.

There’s nothing else I can do, Richard. But if there eventually turns out to be anything that you think I can do, I’m more than willing to help the vice president. And we hung up. And that’s when my wife, you know, overhearing the conversation, literally said something to the effect of Oh my god. You have to stop this.

You have to stop this. This will be devastating to America. And I said, well, hon, I agree that it would be devastating, but there’s just nothing I can do. I don’t have any role. I don’t play any part here.

There’s literally nothing I can do. So we spent the rest of the night with her pleading with me to to do something. And my responding to her that there’s just nothing I could possibly do. And that’s we went to bed with those pleased to each other that night to wake up to January fifth. And

then you decided you were going to put out something on Twitter.

Yes. Not not in that way. Charlie, as you know, I got a call from Richard Cullen again on the morning of January fifth. Very early in Mountain Standard Time. And Richard said, judge, we have to do something immediately.

And this is real. And the short story of that series of conversation is this. I said, well, what do you think that we need to do? And he said, you have to get your voice out across the country. I understood what he meant, but I had no earthly idea how how I could do that.

I was retired from the Boeing company at that point. You know, it was It was the beginning of COVID. My wife and I were at a second home of ours. I said to Richard, I don’t have any idea how to do this. I don’t even have a box of stationary that and by the way, I told him No one in the world cares what I had to say about this at at this particular moment.

Well, he insisted and Which turned

out not to be true.

After several calls, five minutes, and ten minutes apart. I said to him well, I guess I could tweet something, but I don’t know how to tweet. And he said, perfect. You must do this immediately. And I said, well, Richard, I’d understand the gravity of the moment.

But but I don’t know how to tweak. And he said, judge, this is perfect. You must do it immediately. So in short, that’s what I did. You know, during those several phone calls, intermittent phone calls, I had drafted on my iPhone what I would say if I could figure out how to say it.

And so once he told me we must do this, and he assured me that that that this was okay because I was skeptical. I went downstairs to my office and figured out how to tweet and tweeted what many commentators and news reports have have called to tweet her around the world.

A seven tweet thread that that clearly was at least heard in the vice president’s office. Have you ever spoken to

Mike Pence about this issue? The vice president actually called me in the morning of January seventh, hours after he he had certified the election of president Biden. Mhmm. It’s kind of an interesting quick story. My wife and I were down at the UPS store.

She was mailing something, and I got a call from spam. And I never answered spam, but I I was just standing in the lobby, and so I answered it. Well, what I do answer, I never say anything. Because it usually triggers a recording. So I didn’t.

Well, after, you know, a long pause, a a voice came on and said, is this judge Luttig? And I said, yes, it is. And the voice said, please hold for the vice president of the United States. And I was stunned. This was, of course, unexpected.

And I, you know, hurried my way out to the car so I could take the call from vice president private. And what did you say? It was under those circumstances a long call from my standpoint, It was as gracious a call as as one could ever receive from anyone, let alone the vice president of the United States, who the day before had been in the position and and done what he did.

Was he looking for validation? Was he just reaching out to reassure that he had absolutely had done the right thing. The only thing that he could have possibly done under the

constitution, why do you think he called you? I’ve been asked that for two years now and and And my answer to everyone else as it is to you today is that I don’t know the vice president has to speak for himself on that. I understand he’s written a book recently. I’ve not read it, but I understand he spoke to this moment. Needless to say I was honored for whatever reasons he called me.

Now it’s a factual matter only, and and I’m not suggesting that these were the reasons the the vice president called me. I don’t know those reasons. You know, at that point, I was widely recognized conservative and conservative judicial voice in the country. And

that’s, of course, why it was so credible. I think my colleague, Bill Crystal, told the Washington Post that the reason your your tweet was so influential was you couldn’t be written off as, you know, just a, you know, a liberal democrat or even a never trumper because you had that kind of gravitas. So you’re talking about the factual situation. Let’s just I know you probably thought a great deal about the counter factual. That if that morning, we all woke up and Mike Pence had followed John Eastman’s advice.

What would it have meant for the country, for the constitution, for the rule of law? If in fact, Mike Pence would have stood up and refused to count those electoral votes.

Well, I spent five months, essentially in isolation in our home in South Carolina, Charlie, leading up to my testimony in June, of last summer. Mhmm. And I thought about nothing but every single aspect of January six in order to prepare for for my testimony. And to my lights, of the many things I said in in my testimony, the single most important was my answer to the question that you just asked. Namely what would have happened in America had the vice president not defied the the president’s demands and overturned or attempted to overturn the the election.

And this is what I said to congress and now to to many others that America would have been plunged into what would be tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis. Each one of those words I could die at Graham, but the bottom line is that it would have been a constitutional crisis in in America unlike any that we have ever seen, or I believe could ever see because of the paralysis of our government that would have resulted and we, you know, we don’t have time to go into all that. But essentially, Charlie, the constitution and therefore, our government doesn’t contemplate anything like happened on January sixth. And therefore, the constitution doesn’t accommodate it. And therefore, our government, the three institutions of our government would not have known what to do with each of them thinking that they might have responsibility, but knowing that the other two branches also had responsibility.

So it’d be paralysis.

So that’s as a paralyzing constitutional crisis that we avoided on January six two thousand twenty one. So let’s fast forward to today. How do you evaluate the risk? Have we escaped this risk? Do you evaluate the danger looking ahead?

I mean, have we shored up these constitutional principles? Give me your sense of of the danger and the peril that that these principles face right now in late March of two thousand twenty three.

We’ve made unsteady progress haltingly in the two plus years since January sixth. The primary progress we’ve made was in reforming the electoral count act, which is the statutory law that the former president and his allies exploited in their effort to overturn that election. There is another feature of the plan known as the independent state legislature theory of interpretation of the electors clause and the election’s clause, which I characterized at the time as the centerpiece of the plan to overturn the election. And we’ve not moved at all on that important centerpiece. Right now, the supreme court of United States has that issue of the independent state legislature before it in a case called Moore versus Harper — Mhmm.

— a case that comes from North Carolina and that arises under the election’s clause not the electors clause, which was the centerpiece of the twenty twenty effort. But just very recently, the supreme court has asked the party’s debrief whether it still has what the court calls a final judgment before it to decide that case because the North Carolina Supreme Court has granted rehearing in in the case after the political composition of the the North Carolina supreme court changed in the November election. So it’s not even clear today that we will get a decision from the supreme court on the all important independent state legislature theory before the twenty twenty four election. And then most importantly, Charlie, is that you know, the former president, his allies, and and and and now the entire Republican party, you know, have circled the wagons around the former president in January sixth and denied that the former president lost that election denied the January sixth and its consequences, all toward the end of that being the Republican platform in twenty twenty four. And all the while, the former president and and the Republicans, frankly, you know, have cause the corrosion, if you will, of our democracy and the rule of law.

I don’t mean to isn’t getting your reaction to this because you’ve been part of, you know, the judiciary in in the legal world for for decades now. But late last year, when the former president tweeted out that we should terminate elements of the constitution to restore him to power. One would have thought that that statement alone would be disqualifying for any judicial conservative or for the the party of conservative constitutionalism of the Republican Party. Just give me your thoughts on all of that that here you have the former president, very openly saying we should terminate the constitution in order to overturn this election. And yet, the Republican Party’s still looks at him and says, yeah, if he gets the nominee, we’ll we’ll support him again for return to the Oval Office.

What has happened? To conservatives and Republicans that they’re willing to tolerate that kind of thing.

In another day, those words spoken by a president or a former president for that matter would be treesen like, not treason. Treason is a defined term in the constitution. Mhmm. It’s treason lied because that statement as well as January six, you know, the events inspired by the former president were a betrayal of America and a betrayal of Americans the former president and his allies, betrayed the sacred trust that had been confer upon them by the American people. As to the Republicans with large, Charlie, I don’t any longer indulge or even acknowledge the whispers behind the back that they disagree that the former president lost the election and they disagree with with the former president that that January sixth was needed and appropriate.

In my view, Charlie, at this point, and and, frankly, long before now, to not decide to announce January sixth and the former president’s actions on that day is to decide. That you agree with the former president and with all that occurred on January sixth.

I

don’t have time to, you know, to anymore to to worry about that. That’s that’s my view of the republicans.

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And I don’t

wanna put words in your mouth, but my sense is that you’re not calling for Trump’s indictment, but you now believe that he will be indicted and you’ve been laying out the factors that you consider that Merrick Garland should be considering. So what should we do about this? And what does it say if the legal system does not hold Donald Trump accountable for his attempts to overturn the election and for his role in January sixth?

Yes. It’s not my role, you know, to call for the indictment prosecution of of the former president, and I’ve I’ve studiously not done that — Mhmm. — as these various prosecutions you know, have come to the forefront. I have commented on what I thought was their legitimacy and their likelihood. The four in particular that I’ve commented on beginning with the most important is January sixth.

The the investigation being conducted now by the Department of Justice in the person of of Jack Smith for the former president’s conduct on January six. Mhmm. Second, the investigation of of the taking and retention of classified documents to more law though, followed closely by the investigation in Georgia by Fannie Willis of the former president’s effort to interfere with the election in Georgia. In twenty twenty. And last and most recently, this expected indictment in Manhattan related to the Stormy Daniels case.

But I would say today, Charlie, that I would have hoped that the first of any prosecutions of of the former president would not have been either the Stormy Daniels matter in Manhattan or, frankly, the classified documents from Mar a Lago and that instead, if there are to be prosecutions of the former president, the first would would be by the Department of Justice and Jack Smith, for January sixth. Yeah. I’ll go even one step further and say that if it happens to be the case, that the Stormy Daniels prosecution and the classified documents investigation are are the only two prosecutions of the former president coming out of all of his antics and that he’s not prosecuted for January sixth. I will believe that that’s a great service to democracy and to the rule of law in America.

So do you think that Jack Smith will bring Charlie Sykes? And what kind of charges would you that what kind of indictment. Would it be for conspiracy? Would it be for incitement? You

you know, I have to state the obvious which which is I have no earthly idea. I have no insight. None of us do. None of us do. But I’ve been studying this for two years now.

Every day, and I do believe that the Department of Justice will indite and prosecute the former president for January sixth as to what the diamonds for what offenses, the best I can do is point you to the offenses that were identified by the January sixth committee when it recommended prosecutions coming out of January sixth, and two of those were among the ones you’ve referenced, which is defrauding the the United States. The others would be obstruction of an official proceeding being the joint session of congress to to count the electoral votes to determine the presidency, then the January sixth committee recommended a false statement prosecutions in connection with the Fayetteville outdoors plan. And then last, arguably, most consequentialally, the committee urged that the Department of Justice consider prosecution for incitement of an insurrection against the authority of the United States. I’ve not looked at the actual recommendations by the January sixth committee. I would just note for your listeners today that that that offense would exist even if the president did not actually incite the insurrection himself.

Mhmm. Although there are facts that would support such a charge, but even if the president merely aided and assisted such an insurrection. So those would be the federal charges coming out of January sixth as I understand

it. So let’s take a step back to go to more of the thirty five thousand foot perspective on on the moment we’re in right now. You’re on speaking to her last week you gave a speech at the University of Georgia Law School, which I have a copy of and have been reading and I’m really struck by the language that you use. You start by noting that we’re just three years shy of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, but your words, the institutions of our democracy and law are under vicious, unsustainable, and unendurable attack from within and you you don’t mince any word, you say that we’re in a perilous crossroads, you point out that Abraham Lincoln speaking in eighteen thirty eight, the or the constant susan the rule of law become the political religion of the nation. So, you know, reading your your comments, this is a deeper problem than just Donald Trump, just a few things that we are at a moment where, I mean, you feel that we’re at a tipping point.

What do you mean when you describe it as unsuspid sustainable and unendurable attacks?

Yeah. That that you just read was essentially if not literally what I said to the Congress of the United States. I meant exactly what I said. This is when I speak publicly, I try to speak as if I were still a sitting federal judge. So that’s just factually what we have in America today and where we are in America today, namely that our institutions of democracy and law have been under vicious attack for years now that is from within, not from without the United States.

And these vicious attacks are unsustainable and unendurable. They’ve already taken their toll on American democracy an American law in their impact and consequence of their impact on the institutions of democracy and law. We are at a perilous crossroads. That’s what I said to Congress, and the illusion to congress, and in this speech that you you have now, the illusion was to the civil war. And I I gave a great deal of thought to that before I testified.

I knew what I was saying, of course. And I knew the way in which it would be appreciated and understood. You know, I didn’t say to congress that we were on the verge of a civil war, though many many people at the time believed we were and still believe believe we are now, Charlie. Do you believe that we are now? Do you think that’s possible?

And what would it be like?

I would say this. I’ve earlier said that that the former president now presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in twenty twenty four, and his Republican Party and allies are poised to attempt to overturn the twenty twenty four election if if he were to lose that election. If he were to do that, then I believe that we would be on the verge of a civil war?

You also in in your remarks, in Georgia, you know, stressed your concern supreme court, which is supposed to be the constitutional guardian of our rule of law, is losing the confidence of the public. This seems to be something else that Trump has been doing that he has been that I mean, leaving aside the supreme court for a second, that that for years now, he has been undermining and trying to de legitimize juries, judges, prosecutors, the whole idea of the rule of law. And now we have this moment where a larger and larger portion of the public seems to doubt the legitimacy of the supreme court. Just talk to me a little bit about this that we now have, you know, recent poll showing that that not even a majority of the public view of the Supreme Court favorably. What what are the consequences if the court is perceived just to be another ideological tribal cudgel.

As I said in that speech that that you had before you, Charlie Sykes efforts to undermine our institutions in America, frankly, all of them, are deliberate and their intentional, and their object is to undermine the legitimacy of of those institutions of democracy and law. And as I said in that speech before you, make no mistake. These attacks on our institutions have had the desire of facts already. Already. Now.

No longer, do Americans believe in those institutions of of our democracy see in in of our law. And that’s the consequence of these unendurable attacks over these many years.

So you say it would not be an overstatement to say that during our lifetimes, this nation of laws will effectively decide whether we live by the rule of law or by the rule of politics because the politicization of all of our institutions has become so all consuming. And and you call out members of the legal community who’ve pated in this assault on the rule of law. I mean, so tell to me a little bit about this, you know, the rule of law professors practicing the lawyers in the courts. In aiding and abetting this this politicization of the rule of law. And

look, I think there’s just a, you know, it’s a matter of fact. I don’t think that anyone would even, you know, deny it or try to refute that America today is consumed by politics but more importantly, bipartisan politics —

Mhmm. —

to the exclusion of all else. In a word, our elected officials and our our our political leaders. It never even occurs to them to put country ahead of their partisan politics. Or their own partisan political ambitions. In fact, it never occurs to them that that’s the choice that’s put before them every single day they’re in their jobs.

They just deny that’s the case. So over time, you know, this politicization, you know, has seeped into the law. And now threatens to overcome the law, rendering the law little different than politics, And if and when that occurs, then there is no longer law or a rule of law in America. It’s the rule of politics.

Well, I don’t know whether you’ve been able to follow what’s going on here in my home state of Wisconsin where we have the most expensive judicial election in American history, you know, more than thirty million dollars on the state supreme court election, which is indistinguishable from a race for governor or for US. And then I guess going back to the question that I I raised a little bit earlier, the concept of being a judicial conservative because it it seems to have morphed in the minds of many people on the right that a conservative judge is supposed to rule in favor of conservative public policy. There’s two different visions. Right? The conservative judge who rules on the basis of what the law is, not what the ideological outcome should be.

But increasingly listening to a lot of these debates, there are people who believe that the only thing that matters are the outcomes is the result and they’re prepared to do anything to get the proper result. Is that so, I mean, there’s been a corruption of what it means to be a conservative judge. And I’m not saying that the judges have necessarily gone along with this, but at least in the view, I mean, I’m watching the conservative candidate for supreme court justice in Wisconsin. Basically, promise that he will not do what other judges have done, you know, and show flashes of, you know, judicial independence because he’s a reliable vote for the right to win on each of these cases. So have you seen that?

Is that part of this erosion? This changing of of it from process to result oriented? Oh,

Charlie, I couldn’t state it any any clearer or or any better. It’s not merely a part of this corrosion. It is this corrosion. And it’s not merely the corrosion of the view or perspective as you called it of of the conservative lawyer or the conservative judge is nothing less than the complete corrosion of law in the rule of law. You know, the the Democrats and Republicans have been at war over law and the rule of law for twenty five years now.

And the conservatives, they won that war when Amy Coney Barrett was elevated to the supreme court at the eleventh hour just prior to the election. Why is that? Because that put on the supreme court or her point put on the supreme court, what we call a supermajority. Mhmm. And that conservative supermajority now will define what law is and is not for the foreseeable future in the in the country.

But the point is the conservatives won that war, but it had been a a war that had been waged in the open and plain view in front of the country for twenty five years. Every person understood what the war is about and the consequences of the war and therefore the consequences of a victory in that war.

So let’s go back to the heart of your warning here that America can withstand attacks on its democracy and rule from the outside, but we are really vulnerable when the attacks come from within. And Hugh, right, in the moral catatonic stupor America finds itself in today, It is only disagreement that we seek. And the more Sarah Longwell that disagreement, the better we are a house divided, and our poisonous politics is fast eating away at the fabric of our society. That’s alarming. I personally don’t think that it’s overstated, but Do you see America right now as being where America was at when Abraham Lincoln spoke in eighteen thirty eight?

Yeah. Are you on optimist? Are you a pessimist? How do you feel about what’s about to happen over the next decade or decade and a half?

I’ve been my entire life in any eternal optimist. But as to what we’re talking about today, at this moment, today, Charlie, I’m not optimistic because of all that we’ve been talking about. I propose the solution to the to the problem to congress, the problem that you just identified that we, you know, we only want to disagree. That is the problem. And I propose the solution and that solution was that a political solution from my years observing and participating in in the political world in Washington, D.

C. I propose that a critical mass of each of the two parties comprised of those members who who have the the moral authority and the patriotic obligation to step forward and say that America’s in peril. And that we must come together to avoid the inevitable war I’m not going to call it civil war, but the inevitable war. And, you know, based on my considerable experience in Washington DC, I do know that that’s the answer. Now, I testified to that six, eight months ago now, and not a single Republican leader.

Not one.

Has heeded my call to step forward not one single Republican elected official. I said to Congress, it’s not the the the Democrats’ role at this moment. Because it’s the Republicans who instigated this war on democracy and the rule of law on January sixth. So my point is the Republicans have to step forward. It’s

gotta come from within them. Yeah. That’s the crucial point. Yeah. It’s

gotta Absolutely. And one of them has. And now, Charlie, it’s obvious to to the country that the Republican Party and Republicans, you know, as a political organization and party, they’ve cast their lot with Donald Trump. And cast their lot with all that he did on January sixth. You know, I don’t do politics, but but I’m not stupid.

That’s incomprehensible to me. And what that is is is nothing more or less than political cowardice. And so as far as I’m concerned, at this point, they get what they deserve. And if they lose every election from now on, that’s fine by me. That’s what they deserve.

To

what’s your reaction to the way Mike Pence’s headwind is given your role in influencing Mike Pence. He has given some speeches where he has pushed back on Donald Trump, but he’s just not willing to go there. Is he? And he’s been resisting the various subpoenas he wouldn’t testify before January sixth. So in retrospect, given the role you played in getting Mike Pence to do the right thing, Are you disappointed?

Are you encouraged? How do you how do you grade Mike Pence? I understand your question. And I’m not going to answer the question as

you posed it. But I I will say this, the former vice president is a politician. In that way, in respect, he’s no different than the rest of them. And I’ve never had an an ounce of respect for any politician that I that I remember and and and certainly will not ever ever again — Mhmm. — when he announced that he would fight the subpoena, Jack Smith subpoena to testify in front of the grand jury in the district of Columbia.

I was sufficiently concerned that I I first tweeted a legal analysis of his argument which I I said was barely an argument at all. And then a few days later, I wrote NSA in the New York Times explaining that in my view, this was a political error is all I I would say and all I I was willing to say.

Judge, I do this every day, but talking with you is really, really an honor. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks, Charlie. Really enjoyed

it. Judge Michael Luttig, former judge in the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit where he served for fifteen years. And of course, we know the historic role that he played in advising Mike Pence on January sixth. Thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes.

We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll do this all over again.

The

bulk of podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.