J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge, was given an opportunity to deliver a final statement on June 16 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public.
Luttig said that former President Donald Trump and his allies “are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” adding that he fears in the next presidential election they will “succeed in 2024, where they failed in 2020.”
“I don’t speak those words lightly,” he said. “I would have never spoken those words ever in my life except that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us.”
The hearing was the third of several planned by the Jan. 6 committee that focused on Trump’s efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to reject Congress’ official count of Electoral College votes on the day of the attack. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day. The committee postponed a hearing scheduled for June 15 that was meant to focus on Trump’s efforts to replace Attorney General Bill Barr, who did not support his claims of voter fraud after the election.
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