'Political War': Ted Cruz's Mentor Judge J. Michael Luttig Turns On Donald Trump

Former Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig has said the GOP is currently in a "political war" as it splits between those who support Donald Trump's attempts to overthrow Democratic elections and those who want to speak out against it.

In the space of a few days, the influential judge, who served for 15 years on the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, has publicly attacked leading members of the party for not standing up to Trump as he sought to dispute the 2020 Electoral Count, including warning in a New York Times opinion piece that the president looks set to do it again in 2024.

Days later, Luttig gave an interview to conservative lawyer group Checks & Balances in which he also expressed his outrage that "not one single leader of ours with the moral authority, the courage and the will to stand up and say 'No, this is not who we are'" with regards to Trump and the GOP.

"I have for six years considered this the paradigmatic failure of leadership," he said.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Luttig said he became even more irate at the direction of where the GOP are heading after the Republican National Committee voted to censure reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only two Republican lawmakers on the House Select committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riot.

"This feels like a seminal moment in America when all of what the country has witnessed and endured for these years seems to be building to volcanic crescendo…We are in political war to the death—with each other," Luttig said, adding that "American democracy hangs in the balance."

Luttig also reiterated his belief that Republicans not speaking out against the "utter madness" of Trump's election fraud claims is "the definition of failed leadership."

One of those who he named personally responsible was his old protégée Ted Cruz, who worked under Luttig as a Supreme Court clerk. The Texas Senator described the judge as "like a father" to him in a 2016 profile for The New York Times.

In his opinion piece for The Times, "The Conservative Case for Avoiding a Repeat of Jan. 6," Luttig described how current "convoluted" legal language in the Electoral Count Act of 1887 means Congress has the power to determine the presidency if it concludes that Electoral College votes were not "lawfully certified" or "regularly given."

Luttig warned that unless the law is reformed to remove the "vague and undefined terms" that do not even address if there is proof of voter fraud, Trump and his allies will yet again attempt to dispute the election results if he is the GOP candidate.

"After the 2020 election, Republican senators like Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri tried to capitalize on those ambiguities in the law to do Mr. Trump's bidding, mounting a case for overturning the results in some Biden-won states on little more than a wish.

"Looking ahead to the next presidential election, Mr. Trump is once again counting on a sympathetic and malleable Congress and willing states to use the Electoral Count Act to his advantage."

He said: "The only members in Congress who might not want to reform this menacing law are those planning its imminent exploitation to overturn the next presidential election."

Cruz was heavily criticized for being one of the most high-profile figures to amplify false claims that Trump lost the election due to widespread voter fraud, as well as inciting the January 6 attack with his rhetoric. Cruz voted to reject the electoral votes even after the insurrection attempt disrupted the counting process.

Newsweek has contacted Ted Cruz for comment.