'Never in American history': Ex-judge hits out at nation's 'passivity' over Trump attacks
Retired Judge Michael Luttig, a conservative jurist who has nonetheless become a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump, outlined the dangerous game the former president is playing by attacking judges and their families.
Writing on Twitter, Luttig took Trump to task for his regular attacks on judges and their family members, including his most recent attacks on the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, who is currently overseeing his business records fraud trial related to 2016 hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
"The Nation is witnessing the determined delegitimization of both its Federal and State judiciaries and the systematic dismantling of its system of justice and Rule of Law by a single man – the former President of the United States," Luttig began.
Luttig went on to document the unprecedented nature of Trump's assault, which has not been limited to merely the judges who are overseeing his multiple criminal trials.
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"Never in American history has any person, let alone a President of the United States, leveled such threatening attacks against the federal and state courts and federal and state judicial officers of the kind the former president has leveled continually now for years," Luttig argued.
The judge also took a shot at Americans writ large for having come to accept Trump's attacks on judges as within the bounds of normal political discourse rather than the unprecedented assault on the rule of law that they represent.
"But suffice it to say, never in history has any person leveled such attacks and been met with such passivity, acquiescence, and submissiveness by the nation," the continued.
"It is a regrettable commentary on our times that a lone federal judge, The Honorable Judge Reggie B. Walton — because no one whose responsibility it is to do so has had the courage and the will — would finally be left no choice but, himself, to express on national television."
Walton went on CNN Thursday night to speak out against Trump's attacks.