Retired Conservative Judge Becomes Latest Republican to Endorse Harris

A retired conservative federal judge and legal scholar became the latest prominent Republican to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris over the GOP’s nominee, former President Donald Trump.

J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, according to CNN—a boost which came on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

“In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law,” Luttig said in a statement. The retired judge said he planned to “unhesitatingly vote” for the Democratic nominee for the first time in his life.

Luttig was appointed to the federal bench by former President George H.W. Bush in 1991.

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He was considered for a Supreme Court nomination by George W. Bush over a decade later after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retired in 2005, according to multiple reports from the time.

Luttig retired from the bench in 2006 to become the general counsel for Boeing, a position he held until 2019.

He became widely discussed in legal circles again after the 2020 election when John Eastman, a Trump-aligned lawyer and Luttig’s former clerk, wrote a so-called “coup memo” indicating how he believed former Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the election results.

Luttig disagreed with his former clerk, and wrote a series of Tweets that Pence would later cite as reasoning to certify the election for Biden. He later testified before the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, condemning Trump’s actions as an effort to “cling to power.”