- Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig warns Trump’s push for a potential third term threatens constitutional order and could lead to authoritarian rule.
- Trump’s attacks on judges, court intimidation, and political maneuvers have weakened checks and balances, risking the judiciary’s independence.
- Despite dangers, federal judges continue to block overreaches, serving as the crucial bulwark defending the rule of law.
WASHINGTON—In a stark op-ed published in The Atlantic this week, retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a conservative stalwart appointed by President George H.W. Bush, has issued a blistering indictment of former—and now current—President Donald Trump’s trajectory toward authoritarian rule.
Luttig, who has long positioned himself as a principled critic of Trump’s assaults on democratic norms, warns that the president’s flirtations with a third term represent not just a constitutional affront but an existential peril to the republic itself.
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“With his every word and deed, Trump has given Americans reason to believe that he will seek a third term, in defiance of the Constitution,” Luttig wrote.
“It seems abundantly clear that he will hold on to the office at any cost, including America’s ruin.”
Luttig’s piece, titled “Trump’s Third Term and the Authoritarian Temptation,” arrives amid a cascade of actions and rhetoric from the White House that have reignited fears about the erosion of checks and balances.
Now 10 months into his second term, Trump has leaned into speculation about extending his grip on power.
Just days ago, aboard Air Force One en route from a meeting with business leaders in Tokyo, the 79-year-old president mused that he would “love” to run again in 2028, dismissing a theoretical workaround—having himself slotted as vice president only to ascend to the top job—as “too cute.”
His official website peddles “Trump 2028” merchandise, and a recent Truth Social post featured a video montage evoking a “never-ending presidency,” complete with ominous imagery of eternal rule.
A Seize of Unchecked Power?
This isn’t idle chatter, Luttig argues. It’s a deliberate escalation from Trump’s first term, when efforts to overturn the 2020 election culminated in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Luttig himself testified before the House Select Committee investigating that assault in June 2022, emphasizing how Trump’s pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to block certification of Joe Biden’s victory nearly shattered electoral integrity.
Today, with a compliant Republican Congress and a Supreme Court tilted by his own appointees, Luttig sees fewer barriers.
“Donald Trump has seized near absolute unchecked power in the United States—unchecked by either Congress, the Supreme Court, the several states, or the media itself,” he told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday.
“There’s no question at all that, as of today, Donald Trump has all the power he would ever need to run for a third term and be seated as the next president, whether or not he actually won that election.”
Luttig’s alarm echoes a broader chorus of unease from the judiciary, where Trump’s second term has unleashed what many describe as an unprecedented war on the courts.
In an op-ed for The New York Times back in April, Luttig predicted that a Supreme Court rebuke of Trump’s judicial skirmishes “could well cripple Mr. Trump’s presidency and tarnish his legacy.”
That scenario feels increasingly prescient as federal judges—many appointed by Republicans—push back against executive overreach.
Take the March clash over deportations: Trump ordered the swift removal of nearly 300 alleged Venezuelan gang members, only for U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to halt the flights, citing due process violations.
Trump fired back on social media, branding Boasberg a “troublemaker and agitator” appointed by Barack Obama who “should be IMPEACHED!!!”
Chief Justice John Roberts swiftly rebuked the call, stating in a rare public statement that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Such episodes have become routine. By May, the FBI’s arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan—charged with obstructing the apprehension of an undocumented immigrant in her courtroom—drew sharp condemnation from over 150 retired judges in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“This latest action is yet another attempt to intimidate and threaten the judiciary after a series of rulings by judges appointed by presidents of both parties holding the Trump Administration accountable for its countless violations of the Constitution and laws of the United States,” they wrote.
The judges called it an “embarrassing spectacle,” underscoring how Trump’s administration has filed misconduct complaints against judges like Boasberg and sued entire district courts, such as Maryland’s, for blocking immigration policies.
Assaults on Judicial Independence
The pattern extends to broader assaults on judicial independence.
In June, protests erupted in Los Angeles over ICE raids, prompting Trump to deploy National Guard troops—a move U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut in Oregon temporarily blocked, ruling it an unlawful use of military force for domestic policing.
Luttig, speaking on NPR’s Consider This, framed this as “the end of rule of law in America,” warning that Trump’s actions “signal the end of the rule of law.”
Retired federal judges interviewed anonymously by CNN in August described the administration’s tactics as an attempt to “intimidate, threaten and just run over the courts in ways that we have never seen.”
One noted the chilling effect: Judges are now fielding bomb threats, with the federal judiciary establishing a special panel to address dangers to those ruling against the White House.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s sister even received such a threat in Charleston, South Carolina, around the same time.
Trump’s allies aren’t shying away from the confrontation. Steve Bannon, in an interview with The Economist, hinted at “different alternatives” for a 2028 run, fueling speculation about legal maneuvers to skirt the 22nd Amendment’s two-term limit.
Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe has warned of loopholes, like a vice-presidential bid where the ticket’s presidential candidate steps aside post-election.
Meanwhile, figures like Elon Musk and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have amplified calls to defy “corrupt judges,” with Miller labeling Immergut’s ruling “legal insurrection.”
On the right, voices like podcaster Matt Walsh urge Trump to “openly defy these judges,” a sentiment echoed by Heritage Foundation’s John Malcolm, who concedes ignoring rulings would be “risky” but possible “under extreme circumstances.
“These tensions trace back to the 2024 campaign, when warnings about Trump’s threat to democracy were dismissed by the president as a “hoax” and “Democrat misinformation.”
In a Dayton, Ohio, rally, he predicted that losing the election would mean “you’re not going to have another election… any election” in the U.S. Critics, including former Rep. Liz Cheney, countered that a Trump win would mean “sleepwalking into a dictatorship.”
Post-election analyses, like those from Vox, likened the playbook to Viktor Orbán’s in Hungary: not outright abolition of elections, but a slow hollowing out through bureaucratic control and institutional capture.
Federal Judges Aim to Slow or Rebuke Authoritarian Policies
Trump’s early moves—firing over 130 immigration judges, pushing executive orders on birthright citizenship (struck down by federal courts), and opening federal databases to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency for voter purges—fit that mold.
Yet amid the gloom, glimmers of resilience persist.
Federal judges, from district to appeals levels, have issued over a dozen rebukes this year alone, slowing policies on everything from military deployments to election overhauls.
In April, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly partially blocked Trump’s executive order mandating citizenship proofs for voter registration, deeming it a risk to eligible citizens’ rights.
And strategic retirements among conservative judges have stalled Trump’s hopes of further packing the bench; only two Republican appointees have stepped down since January, compared to seven in the first term’s early months, per Bloomberg Law.
Luttig closes his Atlantic piece with a rallying cry straight out of the Founding Fathers’ playbook, invoking Benjamin Franklin’s query on the republic: “If America is to long endure, we must summon our courage, our fearlessness, our hope, our spirited sense of invulnerability to political enthrall, and, most important, our abiding faith in the divine providence of this nation… If we do not keep it now, we will surely lose it.”
It’s a sentiment that resonates in a judiciary under siege and a nation watching its guardrails bend.
As Luttig put it on Morning Joe, “Trump has always told us exactly who he is. We have just not wanted to believe him. But we must believe him now.”
Whether this proves a turning point or a tipping point remains unclear.
For now, the courts stand as the last bulwark, their gavel strikes a reminder that even in America’s most trying hours, the rule of law endures—not because it’s invincible, but because people like Luttig refuse to let it fall.
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