L. Michael Luttig. Photo by Susan Walsh.  AP.

Dear Commons Community,

Conservative former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential bid yesterday, in what will be his first time voting for a Democrat, according to CNN.

“In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law,” Luttig wrote in a blistering statement. “As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.”

Luttig is a former jurist on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a highly respected conservative legal scholar. He has been outspoken about Donald Trump’s attempt to fraudulently overturn the 2020 presidential election, arguing that Trump is a threat to democracy and deeply unfit for office.

“To this day — to this day still — not only does the former president, and now the Republican Party of which he is again the standard bearer, continue to falsely claim that the former president won the 2020 election,” Luttig said in his statement, “he and his Party defiantly refuse even to pledge that they will honor and respect the vote and the will of the American People in the upcoming presidential election.”

He added that today’s GOP has “literally taken America political hostage, threatening the Nation with the specter of another January 6, 2021 on January 6, 2025, if the former president again loses his campaign for the presidency by a vote of the American People.”

The former judge, a Republican appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush, said that although he and Harris likely have sharp differences on public policy, he is supporting her campaign because of her commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution.

Luttig is only the latest Republican to back Harris’ White House bid. Over the weekend, former Virginia GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock announced she planned to vote for Harris in November.

“After Jan. 6, after Donald Trump has refused for four years to acknowledge that he lost, and his threats against democracy, I think it’s important to turn the page,” Comstock said during a CNN interview Sunday. “That’s why I will be voting for the vice president.”

Thank you, Mr. Luttig and Ms. Comstock!

Tony

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