op-eds in publications like The New York Times<\/a>. A transcribed excerpt from that conversation is below, edited for length and readability.<\/p>\nJ. Michael Luttig: I was first called by the vice president’s outside counsel, Richard Cullen, on the evening of Jan. 4. We now know that that was after the fateful Oval Office meeting that day between the president and vice president, where John Eastman made the argument that the vice president could overturn the election unilaterally as presiding officer.<\/p>\n
Ryan Lizza: And you know John Eastman?<\/p>\n
Luttig: John Eastman was one of my clerks \u2014 over 25 years ago \u2014 and Richard Cullen is one of my closest friends in all of life. And we had been, at that point, talking seemingly every day \u2014 if not multiple times a day \u2014 throughout the entire Trump administration because, of course, our close friend, Bill Barr, was attorney general.<\/p>\n
So he called me. I was having dinner. No big deal: this is like your best friend calling. He called the night of the 4th and says, \u201cHey, Judge, what do you know about John Eastman?\u201d And I said, \u201cHe was a clerk of mine 30 years ago.\u201d He says, \u201cWell, what else do you know?\u201d I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know. John\u2019s an academic, he\u2019s a professor, he\u2019s a constitutional scholar \u2014 and he’s a brilliant constitutional scholar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lizza: This is sort of shocking to hear you say this, considering the way that most people have been introduced to John Eastman.<\/p>\n
Luttig: Well, read everything that was written about him before, you know, Jan. 6.<\/p>\n
Lizza: So that’s interesting: the person who was the architect of the attempted coup, essentially \u2014 I think it\u2019s fair to use that language \u2014 was actually a well-respected legal mind with sound views of the Constitution and not some legal quack.<\/p>\n
Luttig: That’s correct: The farthest thing from it. So Richard said, \u201cWell, you don’t know, do you?\u201d And I said, \u201cKnow what?\u201d He said, \u201cJohn’s advising the president and the vice president that the vice president has this authority [to reject electoral votes] on January 6\u201d \u2014 two days hence. And I said, \u201cWow, no, I did not know that. Well, look, you can tell the vice president that I said that he has no such authority at all. And Richard said he knows that, I said OK, and we hung up.<\/p>\n
So I told my wife about the call, and I said, \u201cWow. This is big.\u201d I got up the next morning \u2014 I get up about 4:45 \u2014 and I’m having my coffee, and Richard calls \u2014 which is not unusual. But the call was unusual. He said, \u201cJudge, can you help the vice president?\u201d And I said, \u201cSure, what does he need?\u201d<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cWell, we don’t know what he needs.\u201d And I said, \u201cWhat do you mean you don’t know what he needs? Then why are you calling me?\u201d He said, \u201cLook, this is serious.\u201d I said, \u201cOK, I understand. What do you want?\u201d He’s talking with Marc Short and the vice president. And he says, \u201cWe need to do something publicly, get your voice out to the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that point, I said, \u201cOh my gosh, Richard, I don’t even have a job, much less an official one. I have no platform from which to speak.\u201d I’m out here in Colorado at 6 in the morning. I don’t even have a fax machine. I said, \u201cI really don’t even have a thought.\u201d And he said, \u201cThis is urgent.\u201d I said, \u201cI understand.\u201d He said, \u201cI\u2019ll call you back in five minutes.\u201d So we hung up, and I sat there, finished my coffee \u2014 just racking my brain.<\/p>\n
Just try to put yourself in my position. I had not a clue [what to say].<\/p>\n
So he calls me back in five minutes: \u201cYou got anything yet?\u201d And I said, \u201cNo, I don’t, Richard.\u201d He says, \u201cI’ll call you back in 10 minutes.\u201d So he calls back in 10 minutes, and I said, \u201cRichard, honest to goodness, I have no earthly idea what I can do.\u201d And he says, \u201cI\u2019ll call you back in 10 more minutes, but we\u2019ve got to move.\u201d He called back in 10 minutes, and I said, \u201cAlright, I opened a Twitter account a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t know how to use it.\u201d He said, \u201cPerfect.\u201d And I said, \u201cI told you: I don’t know how to use it.\u201d He said, \u201cFigure it out and get this done.\u201d So I called my tech son who works for Peter Thiel, and I said, \u201cHow do I tweet something more than 180 characters long?<\/p>\n
Lizza: Wait a second. You’re in the position here where the vice president is being pressured by the president of the United States to overturn the results of the election. And you\u2019re the go-to legal mind who’s respected among Republicans that the vice president is looking to to essentially stop a coup. Do I have that right?<\/p>\n
Luttig: To answer the question you\u2019re asking: I understood the gravity of the moment and the momentous task that I was being asked to help the vice president with. I had been following all of this very closely in the days leading up to it. It was then \u2014 and may forever be \u2014 one of the most significant moments in American history. I’m a cut up, but I’m deadly serious when the time comes, and that day, I was as serious as I can possibly be.<\/p>\n
Lizza: But first, you’ve got to learn how to tweet.<\/p>\n
Luttig: So my son \u2026 well, first off, he says, \u201cDad, I don’t have time for this. You\u2019ve got to learn this stuff on your own. \u2026 I’m busy.\u201d To which I said something like, \u201cJust tell me right now how to get this done, or I’ll cut you out of the will.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only thing I knew how to do was type out in prose all I wanted to say. Well, that was like 10 tweets [long]. So I go down to my office, and I open up the [Twitter] instructions on my laptop and I copy and paste what I’ve written on my iPhone into my laptop into a Word document, and then I set about to divide it up into 180-character tweets. I read it and reread it multiple times and then, I take a deep breath and I hit \u201ctweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Almost immediately, reporters started calling me: \u201cJudge, what are you doing?\u201d And I say, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d And they said, \u201cYou didn’t just tweet what you just tweeted for no reason.\u201d And \u2026 I said, \u201cIf I tweeted this for a reason, I would not be at liberty to tell you.\u201d Minutes later, The New York Times ran the tweet\u2026<\/p>\n
Lizza: And more importantly, the vice president cited your legal analysis on Jan. 6 in his famous letter explaining what his responsibilities and authorities were that day.<\/p>\n
Luttig: Yes, that might be the greatest honor of my life. But it came to my attention in the least auspicious way. I got two back-to-back emails on [January] 6th from two of my clerks \u2014 both of them to the effect of: \u201cJudge, we know what you’re doing.\u201d And I said, \u201cGuys, I don’t know what you’re talking about.\u201d They said, \u201cThe vice president is on his way to the Capitol, and he cited you in his letter to the nation.\u201d And they sent me a copy of it.<\/p>\n
That’s the first time that I ever knew what was to happen with the tweet from the day before. No one had ever told me that. I had no idea. And they obviously didn’t want and didn’t intend to tell me \u2014 and that’s fine; it’s none of my business. I was floored to read that and honored.<\/p>\n
Lizza: That was a total surprise? In the most important moment of Vice President Pence’s life, that letter justifying that no, he cannot overturn the results; his role as simply ministerial \u2014 that was a total surprise to you that he cited your legal analysis as the justification for his view?<\/p>\n
Luttig: Complete, utter surprise. And the vice president called me the next morning to thank me.<\/p>\n
Lizza: Can you tell us a little bit about that conversation?<\/p>\n
Luttig: He was the most gracious person in the world. I was at a UPS Store in Vail, Colorado, standing outside freezing, and my wife was sending a package. A call came [on my phone] as spam. I never answer spam calls, but I had nothing else to do. So I answered it. I said nothing for seemingly 15 seconds. And then a voice said, \u201cIs this Judge Luttig?\u201d And I was startled and said \u201cYes, it is.\u201d And the voice said, \u201cPlease hold for the vice president.\u201d<\/p>\n
I scurried out to the car so I’d have some privacy. The vice president got on: \u201cJudge, this is Mike Pence.\u201d And I said to the vice president that it was the highest honor of my life that he had asked me and I will be grateful to him for the remainder of my life.<\/p>\n