Judge J. Michael Luttig was appointed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, where he served until 2006. He was a prominent conservative jurist, but was repulsed by the Trump regime, especially Trump’s contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. He became one of the most outspoken critics of Trump. In this post, he criticized the Supreme Court for ignoring death threats to judges who disagreed with Trump.
This week, David French and I have both addressed the death threats on the lives of the federal judges who dare to rule against Donald Trump.
David did so this morning in the chilling piece in the New York Times linked below, and I did so on Tuesday in an hour-long interview with Meghna Chakrabarti of NPR’s On Point, one of the most thoughtful, intelligent interviewers I have ever had the pleasure to talk with.
During my conversation with Meghna, she played on air the actual audio of the death threat made to Federal Judge John McConnell referenced in David’s article. It was bone chilling. When Meghna asked for my reaction to the threat, I first thanked her on behalf of the entire Federal Judiciary for playing the audio for all of America to hear and then said “America is weeping at this moment, Meghna. America is weeping. I wish you could send this audio to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
I went on to say that the unconscionable attacks on the federal courts and individual federal judges by Donald Trump and his Attorney General will not only continue, but will continue to escalate until Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court of the United States denounce the President and the Attorney General for their unconscionable threats against the nation’s Federal Judiciary.
I explained that up to now, the Chief Justice and the Supreme Court have acquiesced in these assaults on the federal courts, tacitly condoning them, when the Chief Justice and the Court have no higher obligation under the Constitution of the United States of America than to denounce these attacks.
After my interview with Meghna, I forwarded the audio of the death threat to Judge McConnell to a number of the national media, with a note saying simply that “if the national media would saturate the American public with this chilling death threat against Judge McConnell, it could change the course of history.”
David French:
“Have you ever written words that you thought might get you killed? Have you ever written words that you worry might get someone you love killed?
That’s the reality that federal judges are facing across the nation. Our awful era of intimidation and political violence has come for them, and it represents a serious threat to the independence and integrity of the American judiciary.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/opinion/judges-courts-threats-fear.html
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/08/05/judiciary-judge-j-michael-luttig-trump
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Democrats are not going to win by acting more like the morally bankrupt GOP. Duncan and DFER are out of step with the mood among most Democrats. The majority of Democrats want to preserve and even expand socialized services including democratic public education because it is effective and essential to democracy, but I suppose anyone on the take from hedge funds sees endless opportunities to monetize socialized services, which generally cost the public more for a worse service.
Reading this article reminded me of two things. They reflect the distorted world view of Trump and his band of pirates. First, just like Trump wrongly insists that tariffs will be an economic windfall and DFER insists vouchers will generate funds, universal vouchers have the potential to drive state budgets into major deficits. They will allow a few wealthy individuals to make out like bandits at the expense of public education and state taxpayers that will left holding the bill. Second, I have read some articles suggesting that Democrats should run a candidate just as vile and depraved as the orange menace, Rahm Emanuel. Most liberals are tired of the same economics that contributed to our huge income inequality. They are looking for plans that will best serve the public, not billionaires or corporations. It must include the have the right to well-funded public services including public schools that serve all students.
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Sorry, this was intended for the Peter Greene post about Arne Duncan.
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The thought of Rahm as a presidential candidate makes me irate. In Chicago, he was a disaster.
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CONSERVATIVE RETIRED JUDGE J. Michael Luttig has top conservative credentials, having served as Assistant Legal Counsel to Republican President Ronald Reagan and having worked in the U.S. Supreme Court for conservative Justice Antonin Scalia — and what Luttig says now should send chills up every American’s spine: “WE HAVE ALREADY LOST OUR REPUBLIC,” he says, “and the only question for us now is if we can get it back.”
Luttig points to the fact that President Trump is no longer held in check by any law because the majority of Justices now in control of the U.S. Supreme Court has given Trump immunity from prosecution for breaking laws, just like a king is above the law.
Founding Father John Adams spoke for all those who were with him in 1787 to write our Constitution when he said that our new nation shall have “a government of laws, and not of men” and that the people of the United States did not want “an elected king” because they had just fought the Revolutionary War against having a king.
But now in 2025, America once more has a king — a nation with a man who is above the law, instead of the “government of laws, not of men” that patriots died in the Revolutionary War to bring about.
All the patriots who gave their lives in America’s Revolutionary War and all our Founding Fathers have been betrayed. And so many of today’s “American’s” think that’s just great; they fist pump and shout, “Long live King Trump!”
The problem is that while many Americans today can recite perhaps the first few lines of our Declaration of Independence, almost no one today has ever read the whole Declaration in which our Founding Fathers spell out exactly the reasons — the “grievances” why they wrote and signed the Declaration, which in effect was signing their own death warrant because if America lost the Revolutionary War, they would be hanged as traitors to the king.
And yet, they signed, knowing that America had no trained army and no navy and was going up against the largest and best trained army and navy in the world and that ruled the world. Think about that. Would you have signed the Declaration, knowing that you were likely to hang for it?
And here are some of the reasons WRITTEN RIGHT INTO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE to declare why they were revolting against the king:
THE DECLARATION SAYS: “He has kept among us standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.” BUT THAT’S EXACTLY what King Trump is doing again today by putting armed troops in American cities against the will of city and state legislatures — King Trump is MAKING A MOCKERY OF OUR DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
THE DECLARATION ALSO SAYS: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people.” King Trump is sending masked swarms of ICE officers into cities to terrorize even American citizens.
THE LIST GOES ON, so take time to actually read the entire list of grievances in our Declaration of Independence, and then you will understand why our republic today is over…unless enough Americans wake up to what has happened and act to regain what so many Revolutionary War patriots died to win for us and what so many more patriots died to defend in all our wars since then.
BEING A TRUE PATRIOT who is loyal to our Declaration of Independence and to our Constitution isn’t popular in many places today. It takes genuine courage to be true to them and to defend them. Just like it took genuine courage for our Founding Fathers to sign our Declaration of Independence.
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Judges are not the only ones getting threats. Honest election workers who Turmp couldn’t buy, or blackmail, and their families, have been threatened. Many quit their jobs.
Election workers are being bombarded with death threats, the U.S. government says | PBS News
I have also been threatened. After Trump cheated and lied to win the 2024 election, one of his sock puppets MAGA thugs, who could have been him or one of his sons, sent me an email warning me to leave the country or end up sleeping forever.
That was the harshest one.
There have been others, which have been more subtle but send the same message, like the unsigned letter during the convicted rapist, fraud and felon’s first four years in the White House, which arrived with no return address but had a postage mark showing it originated in Florida, which said “they,” whoever they were, know where I live.
Mitt Romney also was getting threats, so he increased security, to the tune of an additional five million dollars annually, for him and his family.
Mitt Romney Was Paying $5,000 a Day To Protect His Family From His Party’s Voters | AllSides
Republicans terrified of crossing Trump due to physical threats, Democrat says | Republicans | The Guardian
“Trump’s threat industry” refers to a broad range of potential threats, both economic and military, associated with President Donald Trump’s policies and rhetoric. Economically, this includes tariffs and trade threats against various countries and industries, such as China, the automotive sector, and the solar industry. Militarily, it involves threats of intervention in other nations like Nigeria, or potential threats of nuclear weapons testing.
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