“A clear and present danger”

Retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig, at today’s hearing of the January 6 committee:

“I have written . . . that today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still, Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. That’s not because of what happened on January 6. It’s because to this very day the former president, his allies, and supporters pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.”

These comments look back to an opinion piece that Luttig wrote earlier this year: “The Conservative Case for Avoiding a Repeat of January 6” (The New York Times ).