QUOTE OF THE DAY: REPUBLICAN JUDGE J. MICHAEL LUTTIG ON THE DANGER OF DONALD TRUMP

Our quote of the day comes from an Op-Ed in the New York Times by Judge J. Michael Luttig who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush and served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.

For his grave offenses that dark January day nearly four years ago, he will forever have the ignominious distinction of being the first American president since the founding to be charged with crimes against the United States. With the assistance of a willing Supreme Court, he succeeded in delaying trial and accountability for his betrayal of the nation until after this election. Now, as he wished, he will never be held accountable for his offenses unless the American people first hold him accountable at the ballot box on Nov. 5.

Yet, to this very day, the former president; his running mate, Senator JD Vance; and much of the Republican Party persist in the fraudulent claim that the 2020 election was stolen from them, and in breathtaking defiance of American democracy and the Constitution, that they can be trusted to ensure a peaceful transfer of power only if Donald Trump wins. That is not democracy and the rule of law. It is autocracy and lawlessness. Respect for the electoral will of the American people and for the peaceful transfer of power are central tenets of our constitutional self-government. Without unhesitating adherence to those fundamental tenets of our Republic by every person who assumes the presidency, America would have neither democracy nor rule by law. Its Constitution would be meaningless words, not magisterial commands. Its greatest strengths would be its terminal weaknesses.

America’s democracy and the rule of law are the only truly consequential stakes in the 2024 presidential election. Yes, there are important policy issues about which we disagree. But that has always been the case and always will be. In this election, these policy differences are comparatively inconsequential, if consequential at all. It is our democracy, Constitution and rule of law that have made America the envy and the beacon of freedom to the world for almost a quarter of a millennium, and on the eve of the 2024 presidential election Donald Trump stands as an imminent danger to those foundational cornerstones of our nation.

Ms. Harris is the only candidate who can be trusted to honor the president’s sacred obligations to America’s democracy, Constitution and rule of law. The vice president understands and cares about what Donald Trump does not. She calls on Americans to “stand up for the rule of law. For our democratic ideal. And for the Constitution of the United States.” She believes we “have the power to chart a new way forward, one that is worthy of this magnificent country that we are all blessed to call home.”

America has never heard those words from Donald Trump. And it never will.

The choice for America next Tuesday could not be clearer.

GO TO THE LINK to read it in full.

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