'Disgraceful and unforgivable': Former federal judge slams Trump’s attacks on justice system
Retired US Circuit Court Judge J. Michael Luttig is sounding the alarm on former President Donald Trump's attacks on the criminal justice system.
In a lengthy thread on X (formerly Twitter), Judge Luttig — a staunch conservative appointee of George H.W. Bush — described the ex-president's attacks on judges, the courts and the legal system as "vicious, disgraceful and unforgivable." He also called on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to step in to protect the integrity of the legal system from relentless attacks by the 45th president of the United States.
"The Nation is witnessing the determined delegitimization of both its Federal and State judiciaries and the systematic dismantling of its system of justice and Rule of Law by a single man – the former President of the United States," Luttig tweeted on Friday. "Never in American history has any person, let alone a President of the United States, leveled such threatening attacks against the federal and state courts and federal and state judicial officers of the kind the former president has leveled continually now for years."
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"It is the responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States in the first instance to protect the federal courts, the federal judges, and all participants in the justice system from the reprehensible spectacle of the former president's inexcusable, threatening attacks, just as it is the responsibility of the respective State Supreme Courts in the first instance to protect their courts and their state judges from the same," Luttig continued.
"Ultimately, however, it is the responsibility of the entire nation to protect its courts and judges, its Constitution, its Rule of Law, and America's Democracy from vicious attack, threat, undermine, and deliberate delegitimization at the hands of anyone so determined," he added.
The former judge elaborated on his remarks in an interview on MSNBC's Deadline White House on Friday, telling host Nicolle Wallace that Trump's attacks risk eroding the institutions responsible for safeguarding democracy. He explained that the ex-president's years-long pattern of attacking the courts is done as a strategy to preempt what he believes will be their eventual rulings against him and render them meaningless.
"His followers, if not a good part of the nation, would dismiss those rulings against him as being politically inspired and motivated... by President Joe Biden and his administration," Luttig said. "The former president is now actually campaigning for the presidency again on the delegitimization of America's institutions of democracy and law."
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"Now, he's the only one at the moment who's claiming that those institutions are no longer legitimate, but many and many of his followers believe it today, and they will cast their votes in favor of Donald Trump in November on the basis that our institutions of law and democracy are no longer functioning," he continued. "That's the tragedy that the nation faces right now... Until or unless we as a nation address this issue, then we're careening toward the effective end of the rule of law in America."
Luttig's remarks came after Trump posted several lengthy screeds on his Truth Social account attacking Judge Juan Merchan — who is overseeing his Manhattan hush money trial — and his daughter. In one of those posts, he mentioned Merchan's daughter by name. And of course, Trump repeatedly attacked Judge Arthur Engoron and his law clerk, Allison Greenfield, throughout his civil fraud trial. Following those attacks, both Engoron and Greenfield said they received numerous death threats from Trump supporters.
Watch Judge Luttig's interview below, or by clicking this link.
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