{"id":163358,"date":"2026-09-22T14:48:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T22:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/22\/conservative-legal-legend-calls-donald-trump-a-trapped-animal\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T14:48:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T22:48:02","slug":"conservative-legal-legend-calls-donald-trump-a-trapped-animal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/22\/conservative-legal-legend-calls-donald-trump-a-trapped-animal\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Legal Legend Calls Donald Trump A \u2018Trapped Animal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

J. Michael Luttig \u2014 the retired Fourth Circuit judge, George H.W. Bush appointee, the one time feeder-judge-to-the-conservative-legal-movement, and the man who advised Mike Pence that he had no authority to throw out the 2020 election<\/a> \u2014 sat down with Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW Monday to give a frank assessment about the state of MAGAland.<\/p>\n

\n

We all knew that this day would come. We\u2019ve known it for six years, and then we\u2019ve known it for the past 19 or 20 months. Right now, today, the walls are closing in on Donald Trump, the president of the United States.<\/p>\n

And while you might have thought that was true of Donald Trump in the past, given, you know, the two impeachments, four indictments, and felony conviction, Luttig is here to say it\u2019s gotten even worse. Trump \u201cis feeling trapped,\u201d Luttig said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a wild animal that\u2019s trapped,\u201d one who is \u201cdesperate today, this week\u201d and \u201cwill be desperate between now and the midterm elections and then the certification of the new Congress in January.\u201d He said it again, in case anyone was drifting: \u201cDesperate like a trapped animal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then he went bigger, arguing that Trump\u2019s actual problem \u201cis that he\u2019s being entrapped by America itself and all that America has always been.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

America has been the envy of the world and the beacon of freedom and liberty to the world for 250 years, until Donald Trump assumed the presidency and America is no longer that at all. \u2026 But now America is slowly fighting back. The walls are closing in on him, and he is desperate at this point. That should worry all of us. And it should worry the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And that\u2019s the legitimately scary part, because Luttig\u2019s argument is that the more the system does its job, the more dangerous the guy in the middle of it becomes.<\/p>\n

Luttig has earned the benefit of the doubt on this stuff in a way approximately few cable-news guests have. Despite his conservative bona fides, he warned that Trump losing in 2024 would bring the country to the brink of civil war<\/a>. He went all in on Colorado\u2019s attempt to bar Trump from the ballot<\/a> under Section 3, and when the Supreme Court gutted it, he called for a constitutional amendment to clean up the mess<\/a>. He has spent the second term declining to pull punches<\/a> about where the rule of law is headed while district judges hold the line largely alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pay attention to the deadline Luttig identifies, \u201cthe certification of the new Congress in January.\u201d Earlier this month, Luttig published an essay<\/a> in The New Republic laying out the mechanism for a MAGA coup in detail: a loyal House clerk simply declines to put Democratic representatives-elect on the roll that determines who gets to organize the new Congress, and January 3, 2027 becomes the date American democracy ends \u2014 not with tanks, but with a list. It\u2019s a stark warning that feels all too real in the year of our lord 2026.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Conservative Legal Legend Calls Donald Trump A \u2018Trapped Animal\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

J. Michael Luttig \u2014 the retired Fourth Circuit judge, George H.W. Bush appointee, the one time feeder-judge-to-the-conservative-legal-movement, and the man who advised Mike Pence that he had no authority to throw out the 2020 election<\/a> \u2014 sat down with Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW Monday to give a frank assessment about the state of MAGAland.<\/p>\n

\n

We all knew that this day would come. We\u2019ve known it for six years, and then we\u2019ve known it for the past 19 or 20 months. Right now, today, the walls are closing in on Donald Trump, the president of the United States.<\/p>\n

And while you might have thought that was true of Donald Trump in the past, given, you know, the two impeachments, four indictments, and felony conviction, Luttig is here to say it\u2019s gotten even worse. Trump \u201cis feeling trapped,\u201d Luttig said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a wild animal that\u2019s trapped,\u201d one who is \u201cdesperate today, this week\u201d and \u201cwill be desperate between now and the midterm elections and then the certification of the new Congress in January.\u201d He said it again, in case anyone was drifting: \u201cDesperate like a trapped animal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then he went bigger, arguing that Trump\u2019s actual problem \u201cis that he\u2019s being entrapped by America itself and all that America has always been.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

America has been the envy of the world and the beacon of freedom and liberty to the world for 250 years, until Donald Trump assumed the presidency and America is no longer that at all. \u2026 But now America is slowly fighting back. The walls are closing in on him, and he is desperate at this point. That should worry all of us. And it should worry the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And that\u2019s the legitimately scary part, because Luttig\u2019s argument is that the more the system does its job, the more dangerous the guy in the middle of it becomes.<\/p>\n

Luttig has earned the benefit of the doubt on this stuff in a way approximately few cable-news guests have. Despite his conservative bona fides, he warned that Trump losing in 2024 would bring the country to the brink of civil war<\/a>. He went all in on Colorado\u2019s attempt to bar Trump from the ballot<\/a> under Section 3, and when the Supreme Court gutted it, he called for a constitutional amendment to clean up the mess<\/a>. He has spent the second term declining to pull punches<\/a> about where the rule of law is headed while district judges hold the line largely alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pay attention to the deadline Luttig identifies, \u201cthe certification of the new Congress in January.\u201d Earlier this month, Luttig published an essay<\/a> in The New Republic laying out the mechanism for a MAGA coup in detail: a loyal House clerk simply declines to put Democratic representatives-elect on the roll that determines who gets to organize the new Congress, and January 3, 2027 becomes the date American democracy ends \u2014 not with tanks, but with a list. It\u2019s a stark warning that feels all too real in the year of our lord 2026.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Conservative Legal Legend Calls Donald Trump A \u2018Trapped Animal\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J. Michael Luttig \u2014 the retired Fourth Circuit judge, George H.W. Bush appointee, the one time feeder-judge-to-the-conservative-legal-movement, and the man who advised Mike Pence that he had no authority to throw out the 2020 election \u2014 sat down with Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW Monday to give a frank assessment about the state of MAGAland. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}