Conservative Republican Legal Giant, Judge Michael Luttig, TORCHES Trump Regime for Attacks on Democracy, Rule of Law
Retired federal judge and conservative stalwart, Michael Luttig, goes off on Trump's attempt to end democracy.
In a blistering warning published two weeks ago in The Atlantic, Judge J. Michael Luttig did not hold back.
From the outset he made clear we don’t do kings in this country:
“The president of the United States appears to have long ago forgotten that Americans fought the Revolutionary War not merely to secure their independence from the British monarchy but to establish a government of laws, not of men, so that they and future generations of Americans would never again be subject to the whims of a tyrannical king. As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense in 1776, ‘For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.’”
After recounting some of Trump’s recent failures to grasp, articulate, and adhere to, even the basics of our constitutional democracy and legal system, Lutting—with withering understatement—observes,
“This is not a man who respects the rule of law, nor one who seeks to understand it.”
Trump 2.0 = Democracy DOA
Judge Luttig writes,
“Thus far, Trump’s presidency has been a reign of lawless aggression by a tyrannical wannabe king, a rampage of presidential lawlessness in which Trump has proudly wielded the powers of the office and the federal government to persecute his enemies, while at the same time pardoning, glorifying, and favoring his political allies and friends—among them those who attacked the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection that Trump fomented on January 6, 2021. The president’s utter contempt for the Constitution and laws of the United States has been on spectacular display since Inauguration Day.”
What Lutting says is true, of course.
Trump has corroded the Rule of Law and is wielding the Olympian powers of both Government and Law as his personal armory of prizes and punishments.
The dynamic of Trump’s first 100+ days was described well several years ago in one of the more astute internet comments:
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.”
—Frank Wilhoit (2018)
Yes, the Authoritarian’s Motto, captured by Wilhoit above, is described even more succinctly by General Óscar Benavides:
“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
A new version of this quotation, updated for the Trump Era, might read:
For my Top Campaign Donor, Elon Musk, everything.
Including, as far as anyone can tell, ALL THE DATA of the United States government. An invaluable asset.
This is law-breaking and corruption as “hyperobject”—so vast it is difficult to even conceive and name, much less respond to, obstruct, stop, defeat, and—eventually—rebuild from and repair what can be repaired.
Trump orders the FBI and the Department of Justice to go easy on capitalist-class, “white-collar” criminals and to divert massive resources to hyper-focusing on criminalizing poor and working-class immigrant families.
Could there be a clearer, real-world illustration of this Authoritarian Motto than this story in the tweets below?
The Trump regime is ordering the FBI to lay off enforcing the corporate crimes of the wealthy, (white), and elite. And, at the same time, SHIFT AN ENTIRE THIRD of ALL FBI efforts for his twisted, reality-TV and propaganda for the feverish MAGA click-bait-crew.
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law!
Not sure if most folks know that the U.S. Government now tweets out a constant stream of “brown-people-crime stories” on its official ICE and DHS twitter accounts.
And, as you might have guessed, the focus is squarely on the crimes of one and only one ethnic group.
As I’ve stated publicly and repeatedly since the first night of the Republican National Convention in 2016, this is simply Nazism.
This newly intense MAGA-fied focus by the Republican Party on Publicizing the Most Inflammatory Crimes committed by undocumented immigrants from Central and South America has a direct and obvious historical parallel and precursor.
The Nazis ran lists in the newspaper of “Jewish crimes.”
This is what Trump and the Republican Party officials are doing, now from official U.S. government social media accounts.
It’s probably obvious to everyone not poisoned by three straight decades of Fox News, but focusing on and hyping up the crimes of one and only one ethnic group is just a straight-up fascist technique.
Like, if I started a Substack that focused 100% on researching and sharing the most heinous crimes committed by, say, Insurance Brokers; Dental Hygenists; Lakers Fans, Fox News Viewers, Republicans, Stamp Collectors, etc., it would not take long to convince some readers that members of this group are particularly violent, evil, murderous.
And, for those who may not know, this is largely what the social media platform once called “Twitter” has become.
Republican “Official” Elon Musk has Turned One of the World’s Most Influential Social Media Sites into a Putrid Swamp of Nazi-style Hate and Political Propaganda, but the Media is Too Polite to Dwell on That…
The World’s Richest Man—Purchaser of Presidencies, King of the Incels and the Worst Men, Stealer of All the Government Data—was allowed to purchase one of the world’s most influential social media platforms and turn it into a fetid firehose of literally Nazism… just endless rancid, racist posts of “Brown People Crime-ing” and “Black People Fighting” on a continuous loop, pushed by Musk into everyone’s feed, and auto-playing into the impressionable minds of this generation.
These are disturbing, dangerous times, and getting more disturbing and more dangerous.
From The Atlantic, again, Judge Luttig continues,
“For the almost 250 years since the founding of this nation, America has been the beacon of freedom to the world because of its democracy and rule of law. Our system of checks and balances has been strained before, but democracy—government by the people—and the rule of law have always won the day. Until now, that is. America will never again be that same beacon to the world, because the president of the United States has subverted America’s democracy and corrupted its rule of law.
Until Trump exits public life altogether, it cannot be said either that America is a thriving democracy or that it has a government ‘of laws, not of men.’”
THIS IS A CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN SAYING THIS.
For anyone who has ever said that I don’t listen to Republicans—I am listening to this Republican.
“In the first few months of his second administration, Trump has proved himself an existential threat to the rule of law in America.”
—Judge Michael Luttig, “The End of Rule of Law in America”
Recounting the Trump regime’s arrest of a Wisconsin judge, Hannah Dugan, the unhinged statements of Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and the illegal, unconstitutional “deportation” of a two-year-old American citizen, Judge Luttig concludes,
“The rule-of-law casualties of these presidentially provoked national crises are mounting by the day. America cannot withstand three-and-a-half more years of this president if his first few months are a harbinger of what lies ahead.
Trump has spoiled for this war against the federal judiciary, the Constitution, and the rule of law since January 6, 2021. He has repeatedly vowed to exact retribution against America’s justice system for what he falsely maintains was the partisan “weaponization” of the federal government against him.
No one other than Trump and his most sycophantic supporters believes that the government’s attempts to hold him and others accountable for their actions that day amount to “weaponization.” With the world as witness, Trump attempted to thwart the peaceful transfer of power—committing perhaps the gravest constitutional crime that a president could ever commit. The United States had no choice but to prosecute him for those crimes, lest he be allowed to make a mockery of the Constitution of the United States.
It is Trump who is actually weaponizing the federal government against both his political enemies and countless other American citizens today.”
“Trump has now directed the Department of Justice to investigate [Chris] Krebs—for what, who knows?”
“Order after order issued by this tyrannical president has been blatantly unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. Trump has provoked a global economic crisis with his usurious tariffs, for which he does not have authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and he has provoked a constitutional crisis with his defiance of a direct order from the Supreme Court—to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to America—and orders from other lower federal courts that he is bound by the Constitution to follow and enforce.”
—Judge Michael Luttig
There is a lot more to Lutting’s powerful epistle to America, but in conclusion, he writes,
“After these first three tyrannical, lawless months of this presidency, surely Americans can understand now that Donald Trump is going to continue to decimate America for the next three-plus years. He will continue his assault on America, its democracy, and rule of law until the American people finally rise up and say, ‘No more.’”
So… add Judge Luttig to the list…
… of people, such as Democratic governor J. B. Priztker and conservative columnist David Brooks, who have recently started echoing what our humble efforts at Planetize the Movement have advocated in thousands of presentations for 25 years:
We URGENTLY need a Mass Global Movement of loving, creative, organized, PEOPLE POWER to secure a path into the future that bends toward justice, ecology, and democracy.
PLANETIZE THE MOVEMENT.
PLANETIZE DEMOCRACY.
I find it so vitally important at this time in human history for clear, conclusive communications like this one to be made widely known.
Thank you Drew for never compromising.