- Former federal judge Michael Luttig said Trump is laying the groundwork to rig the 2024 election.
- Luttig called MAGA world a "clear and present danger to American democracy."
- He said the difference is, now that they've practiced overturning an election, they may succeed.
A former Pence advisor on Thursday characterized former President Donald Trump's failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a dry-run that MAGA world is "candidly and proudly" pledging to get right by seizing power in 2024, no matter what.
Michael Luttig, a retired conservative federal judge who counseled former Vice President Mike Pence in January 2021, told the January 6 select committee that Trump and his supporters remain a "clear and present danger to American democracy" and that they're being incredibly blunt about their plans to manipulate the results of the next presidential election.
"The former president and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 in open and plain view of the American public," Luttig testified during the committee's third public hearing. His closing remarks dovetail with comments Luttig made in a February 14 op-ed he wrote for The New York Times titled "The Conservative Case for Avoiding a Repeat of Jan. 6," wherein Luttig warned that Trump might again try to interfere with the certification of electoral votes.
"If the former president or his anointed successor … were to lose that election, they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election. But succeed," Luttig said of the tentative gameplan. "That's what the former president and his allies are telling us."
Luttig offered the chilling assessment after he and fellow Pence advisor Greg Jacob spoke at length about the work Trump and fellow election deniers put into pressuring Pence to block Joe Biden from becoming president.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson asked Luttig for the final thoughts after noting that "there are those who think the danger has passed" and that "the system worked" because Trump didn't get what he wanted the last time around.