'Catastrophic end': Conservative judge warns of dangers of a second Trump term

A second presidential term for Donald Trump would be both "regrettable" and "catastrophic" to American democracy.

That's according to retired judge J. Michael Luttig who spoke candidly with NBC' News' Jordan Rubin on the "Deadline: Legal Blog."

It is Luttig's belief that the 45th president and his GOP allies "instigated a war on American democracy on Jan. 6" when MAGA-sympathetic mobs engaged in a riot and stormed the Capital to thwart Congressional efforts to certify the 2020 presidential election results in then President-Elect Joe Biden's favor.

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Luttig said Trump and company's actions on that day have left an indelible legacy: they "corrupted American democracy and our elections, to the extent that, today, millions and millions of Americans no longer have faith and confidence in American democracy and in our elections."

And Luttig, who advised former Vice President Mike Pence against overturning the electoral college vote at the culmination of the voting, is deeply perplexed by how the battle lines etched by Trump and the opposition haven't altered, making for a very uncertain election come November 2024.

"It’s evident that the former president and his allies are going to prosecute that war against democracy to its catastrophic end," he said. "And if the former president were to be elected, again, to the office of the president, then I believe that that would be regrettable, for American democracy and the rule of law."

Luttig noted that the former president's sowed discontent is reaping many consequences in several courtrooms.

For the retired jurist, Trump doesn't deserve to be on the ballot in the first place based on the Constitution's Civil War-era Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — the law is being tested in both Colorado and Minnesota among other states by groups of voters aiming to scratch him from the ballot.

Luttig paraphrases how it "disqualifies any person who, having taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, thereafter engages in an insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States, disqualifying that person from holding high public office in the future, including the presidency."