The former appellate judge’s greater calling–and earlier public silence
Last Thursday’s (June 16) January 6 committee hearing (watch recording here) featured the testimony of former lawyer for Michael Pence, Greg Jacob, and that of another Pence advisor, J. Michael Luttig, former Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Mr Luttig’s deliberately worded testimony was scathing and alarming. His written testimony (available here) is a twelve page read, far, far longer beyond the attention span of most of us, but, nonetheless, a document much summarized and analyzed that may go down in history as a stark warning of where we’re headed.
Unlike Greg Jacob, Pence’s former lawyer, J. Michael Luttig has a full wikipedia entry covering his life and career. Mr. Luttig is now 68 years old. In 1991, at age 37, he was appointed by George H.W. Bush to the Court of Appeals (one step below the U.S. Supreme Court). There he served for fifteen years, until 2006. He resigned his judgeship on the federal bench when he was 52 years old. His career on the Court of Appeals bespeaks impeccable conservatism:
Luttig was mentioned frequently as being near the top of George W. Bush‘s list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States…Bush interviewed Luttig but ultimately did not choose him to fill either of two Supreme Court vacancies in 2005. Those two seats were filled by John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Luttig was among the leading feeder judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals, with more than 40 of his law clerks going on to clerk with conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Of those, 33 clerked for either Justice Thomas or Justice Scalia.
That Luttig, this giant of conservative credentials, gave scathing testimony against former President Trump and Trump’s version of the Republican Party at the January 6th hearing should be a wake-up call to Americans—if only those who need to hear were listening.
What prompted Mr. Luttig at age 52, young for a prominent judge, to resign from the Court of Appeals and leave public service? He “resigned to become general counsel and senior vice president for The Boeing Company”.
At the time of his resignation [2006], federal appellate judges were paid $175,100 annually. According to Boeing’s 2008 Annual Report, Luttig’s total compensation for 2008 was $2,798,962.
Most of us would consider $175,100 a princely annual salary even today, but $2.8 million of “total compensation”? That was, and is, beyond the imagination of 99 percent of Americans. (Watch this 6 minute youtube videoviewed more than 24 million times to see just how far beyond the imagination such compensation actually is.) One can hardly blame Judge Luttig for taking the economic opportunity presented to him. After all, in his resignation letter, he cited the need to pay for his two children’s upcoming college education. (Unaffordable with a salary of $175,100?) Perhaps we should simply marvel at the level of altruism that keeps people in public service at all when corporate America can offer a nearly three million dollar compensation package, sixteen years worth of one’s government salary.
Mr. Luttig’s resignation from the federal bench for a position with the Boeing Corporation sixteen years ago did not remove him from legal influence among prominent Republicans. Mr. Luttig testified at the January 6 hearing last Thursday precisely because he served as an advisor to then Vice President Mike Pence during Pence’s time in office. In that position he advised forcefully against the revolution with which Donald Trump was pressuring Pence to engage, advice we learned about only through the January 6th committee’s investigation. I suppose we are indebted to former Judge Luttig for his testimony, but, as with other voices we’ve lately heard in these hearings, one has to ask why it has taken a year and a half to hear them. And at the same time, Luttig’s story should raise an eyebrow or two about the comfortable legal interconnectedness of money, corporations, and government.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry