Thumbing through the stack of “amicus” briefs in the Donald Trump tally case set to be argued next week, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will discover the familiar name of J. Michael Luttig.
A popular figure in the conservative legal world, Luttig rested on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit from 1991 to 2006 after serving in the Reagan White Home and leading the Department of Justice’s distinguished Workplace of Legal Counsel. The President George H. W. Bush appointee’s chambers were a relied on source of clerks for conservative Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and Luttig was even a competitor for the high court at one point.