Michael Luttig: January 6 and the Ongoing Threat to American Democracy

Conversations with Bill Kristol

In a recent article, Judge J. Michael Luttig warns that the last presidential election was a dry run for the next. As he explains, since 2020, our political leaders have yet to do what is necessary to protect against future efforts to overturn elections. In this Conversation, Luttig, a former United States Circuit judge, discusses the role that he played in January 2021, when he advised Vice President Pence on the Constitutional arguments for resisting President Trump’s pressure to overturn the election results. As Luttig wrote and posted on Twitter on January 5, and Vice President Pence cited in his letter on January 6, The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast... and The Constitution does not empower the Vice President to alter in any way the votes have been cast, either by rejecting certain votes or otherwise. But Luttig stresses that serious dangers and threats remain. Given potential loopholes that might be exploited in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act of 1887, it is possible or even likely that future candidates will engage in efforts to subvert elections. Luttig calls for a national effort to protect the integrity of our electoral system, and explains the urgent need to reform the Electoral Count Act to make efforts to overturn elections less likely to succeed.