A respected conservative judge who advised the former Republican vice-president Mike Pence not to attempt to overturn the 2020 election believes Donald Trump has destroyed the Republican party.
“American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties,” J Michael Luttig told CNN on Wednesday. “So today, in my view, there is no Republican party to counter the Democratic party in the country.
“And for that reason, American democracy is in grave peril.”
American democracy has by most measures been in grave peril since 6 January 2021, the day Pence, as vice-president, took Luttig’s advice and refused to attempt to block congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win.
A mob Trump told to “fight like hell” attacked the Capitol, some chanting for Pence to be hanged. The effort failed but nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides. More than a thousand people have been charged and hundreds convicted, some with seditious conspiracy.
Last week, the special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump on four counts relating to election subversion. Trump, 77, pleaded not guilty, as he has to 74 other criminal counts, in New York over hush-money payments to a porn star and federally regarding his retention of classified information.
Trump also faces cases concerning his business affairs and his treatment of women. In New York this week, regarding a civil suit in which Trump was found liable for defamation and sexual assault, a judge said it was not defamatory to call the former president a rapist.
Trial dates are piling up, most during the Republican primary next year. Nonetheless, Trump leads Ron DeSantis of Florida, Pence and the rest of the field by more than 30 points, firmly on course to face Biden again. In Congress, his far-right supporters maintain a grip on the House as they seek to impeach Biden.
Luttig told CNN: “A political party is a collection and assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America. Today, there is no such shared set of beliefs and values and principles or even policy views as within the Republican party for America.”
Trump, he said, was a danger “more so today” than last year, when Luttig testified to the House January 6 committee.
A respected conservative judge who was considered for the supreme court under George W Bush, Luttig made a tremendous impact with his January 6 testimony.
Speaking on primetime television, Luttig said: “I believe that had Vice-President Pence obeyed the orders from his president … and declared Donald Trump the next president of the United States … [he] would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution, within a constitutional crisis.”
On Wednesday, Luttig also told CNN he did not think Trump could avoid conviction for election subversion.
“The evidence is overwhelming that the former president knew full well that he had lost the election,” he said.
