Luttig: Pence avoided a 'constitutional crisis' by refusing to overturn 2020 election

Appearing before the Jan. 6 House select committee on Thursday, retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig testified that if then-Vice President Mike Pence had complied with requests to overturn the 2020 electoral college results on Jan. 6, 2021, it "would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis."

Video Transcript

MICHAEL LUTTIG: I believe that had Vice President Pence obeyed the orders from his president and the president of the United States of America 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'm only one man-- would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.