Former federal Judge Luttig on former law clerks John Eastman, Sen. Cruz’s actions on Jan. 6

Former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, who played a critical role in the Jan. 6 committee hearings, joins Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast and talks about the roles both John Eastman and Sen. Ted Cruz played in the unfolding of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Both Eastman and Cruz were law clerks under Luttig in the 1990s.

Video Transcript

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Judge, I said before that you played a not-insignificant role in all this because you were the constitutional scholar who Vice President Pence's lawyers turned to for advice when the president was pressuring him to overturn the results of the election. But you also have a history with two people who played an even more significant role in the events of January 6.

As a judge, you had two clerks at the same time back in the 1990s, John Eastman and Ted Cruz. They served together, working for you. In your testimony, you said that Eastman's blueprint to overturn the 2020 election was, quote, "the most reckless, insidious, and calamitous failure in both legal and political judgment in American history."

And you also have said that Cruz's role in objecting to the certification of the votes on January 6 was the most important in triggering the process that took place. So how did [CHUCKLES] two of your clerks who worked for you, presumably were tutored by you, end up going so-- being so wrong?

MICHAEL LUTTIG: Well, Michael, you know me, and you know how I conducted myself on the federal court and how I conducted myself vis-á-vis my law clerks. They were always, each year, literally, the best and brightest that are coming out of the law schools.

And the year that Ted Cruz and John Eastman clerked with me together, they were two of the finest law students to graduate that year. They were both brilliant young lawyers at the time. And I was very proud of them as law clerks.

That said, this was 25 years ago. And as you understand and they understand, I'm the judge, not [? them. ?] And neither one of them has been surprised by a single word that I've spoken in the past two years, beginning with the advice that I gave the vice president on January 6. John Eastman, when he read what I wrote, would have, I think, died a thousand deaths.