A dozen lawyers who worked under Republican presidents have signed a letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, saying that another Trump presidency would "threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country."
In the letter, obtained by Scripps News, the lawyers said they couldn't go along with other former Republican officials who won't endorse Trump's reelection campaign yet also aren't willing to vote for Harris. They called this election a "binary choice," with the one in their party being "utterly disqualified."
"Accordingly, we choose to cast our votes for Kamala Harris to prevent returning to office someone who was guilty of grave wrongdoing to our Constitution, democracy, and rule of law, and who remains unfit, dangerous, and detached from reality," the letter said.
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The letter was released a day after Harris formally accepted the Democratic nomination in a speech closing out the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. During the four-day event, multiple Republican leaders — some of whom served in Trump's administration — publicly endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket and largely suggested that Trump was an extremist who didn't care for Republican values.
Now this letter adds more fuel to the fire, with the lawyers urging "all patriotic Republicans, former Republicans, conservative and center-right citizens, and independent voters to place love of country above party and ideology" with a vote for Harris.
Although the group said they expect to disagree with some of Harris' Democratic policy agenda, the lawyers said the endorsement comes from a place of constitutional principle, where their questions of her policies would far more likely be subject to constitutional checks and balances than their questions of Trump's power.
The group then listed a dozen bullet points describing why they believe Harris would make a better fit for office compared to the Republican nominee, with many of the points appearing to be subtle digs at the former president.
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Those include that Harris "will respect the results of elections whether she wins or loses, and will not deny the results of a free and fair election by pressuring public officials to 'find' extra votes or by commissioning fake presidential electors to falsify the results." In a taped January 2021 call, Trump infamously asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes.
Another bullet point seemed to mention a 2019 tweet in which Trump called the press "the enemy of the people." The lawyers said they believe a Harris administration would "not undermine the First Amendment by demonizing the press as the 'enemy of the people.'"
The lawyers' other points include, among others, that Harris would not demean Americans or minority groups, advance conspiracy theories of public policy, "deploy hate to divide us further" or "poison our children, our culture, and our civic values by lying constantly, and by exemplifying crude, mean-spirited, and immoral behavior."
The letter's signers include retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, who served as assistant counsel to President Reagan and announced earlier this week that he'd vote for Harris — his first time voting for a Democrat — over Trump. He's been vocally critical of Trump in the past, including when he tried to legally help former Vice President Mike Pence defy Trump's overturning of the 2020 election.
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Other former Reagan administration lawyers who signed the letter include associate counsel members Benedict S. Cohen, Peter D. Keisler, Peter J. Rusthoven, Wendell L. Willkie II, Robert M. Kruger and Alan Charles Raul, who also served as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget under former President George H.W. Bush. Phillip D. Brady, who served as Reagan's deputy counsel, and David B. Waller, who served as Reagan's senior associate counsel, also signed the letter.
Signers from President George W. Bush's administration include John B. Bellinger III, his senior associate counsel and legal adviser to the NSC, and John M Mitnick, his associate counsel and deputy counsel of the White House Homeland Security Council.
Nicholas Rostow, who served as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and legal adviser to the NSC under Reagan and George H.W. Bush also signed the letter.
Scripps News reached out to the Trump campaign for comment but has not heard back.
Democratic officials would not comment on the letter specifically but pointed to the "extensive outreach" the Harris-Walz campaign has been doing with Republicans, particularly at the DNC.
The Democratic campaign also pointed to the Republicans for Harris-Walz program it launched this month to "further outreach efforts to the millions of Republican voters who continue to reject the chaos, division, and violence of Donald Trump."
