A storied conservative judge, long respected in Republican circles, gave then Vice President Mike Pence the legal ammunition to resist Donald Trump’s coup attempt. In the process, he learned how to use Twitter.

The fascinating story of Judge J. Michael Luttig’s role in combating Trump’s election lies is told in Friday’s POLITICO Playbook.

Luttig, according to POLITICO, is a veteran of the first Bush White House and is among the most respected conservative thinkers in the U.S. From the bench, he played a key role in shaping America’s war on terror.

During the Trump administration, Luttig was a retiree sometimes offering advice to Trump officials, other times watching the White House with growing dismay.

In January 2021, he received a phone call from Pence’s office. A Pence aide explained that Trump was pressuring his vice president to reject the Electoral College votes from several states won by Joe Biden. In effect, Trump was asking Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The aide said that Trump’s plan was backed by John Eastman, an academic with strong conservative credentials. The aide wanted to know what Luttig thought of Eastman.

 “He was a clerk of mine 30 years ago,” Luttig explained.

The aide wondered: would Luttig be willing to make a public statement opposing Eastman’s justification for overturning the election.

Luttig told POLITICO:

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 — and may forever be — one of the most significant moments in American history.

Luttig said he’d be willing to help Pence by tweeting his weighty legal perspective. Problem is, Luttig didn’t really know how to tweet. He asked his son – who worked for right-wing tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel – to help. When his son blew him off, Luttig threatened to rewrite his will.

More from POLTICO’s interview with Luttig:

Luttig: So I go down to my office, and I open up the [Twitter] instructions [my son sent] on my laptop and I copy and paste what I’ve written on my iPhone into my laptop … I read and reread it multiple times, and then I take a deep breath and I hit “tweet.” …

Lizza: The vice president cited your legal analysis on Jan. 6 in his famous letter explaining what his responsibilities and authorities were that day.

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 [Jan.] 6 from two of my clerks … They said, “The vice president is on his way to the Capitol, and he cited you in his letter to the nation.” … 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 was floored …

The vice president called me the next morning to thank me. … 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.

POLITICO’s full interview with Luttig is available here. We encourage you to check it out.