questions.
Rep. Cheney: Thank you very
much.
Judge luttig, thank you for
being here with us today.
You issued a very important
statement earlier today, which I
urge all Americans to read.
I would like to ask you judge,
about one of the sentences in
your statement and ask if you
could explain to us the
significance of it.
You say had the vice president
of the United States obeyed the
president of the United States,
America would immediately have
been plunged into what would
have been tantamount to a
revolution within a paralyzing
constitutional crisis.
Could you elaborate on that?
Mr. Luttig: Thank you.
That passage in my statement
this morning referenced the most
foundational concept in America,
which is the rule of law.
As I interpret your question,
you are asking about that
foundational truth of these
United States.
The foundational truth is the
rule of law.
That foundational truth is for
the United States of America,
the profound truth.
It is not merely the profound
truth for the United States.
It is also the simple truth, the
simple foundational truth of the
American republic.
In my view, the hearings being
conducted by this select
committee are examining that
profound truth, namely the rule
of law in the United States of
America.
The specific question before
you, and before the nation, not
before me, is whether that
foundational rule of law was
supremely violated on January 6,
2021.
Now, to the question
specifically that you asked,
madame vice chair.
I believe that, had vice
president pence obeyed the
orders from his president, the
president of the United States,
during the joint session of the
congress of the United States on
January 6, 2021, and declared
Donald Trump the next president
of the United States,
notwithstanding that then
president trump had lost the
electoral college vote as well
as the popular vote in the 2020
presidential election, that
declaration of Donald Trump as
the next president would have
plunged America into what I
believe would have been
tantamount to a revolution
within a constitutional crisis,
in America, which in my view,
and I am only one man, would
have been the first
constitutional crisis since the
founding of the republic.
Rep. Cheney: Thank you, judge