(National Pulse) The New York Times is elevating a slate of ostensibly ‘conservative’ jurists as an alternative to the center-right Federalist Society. Writing in the Times, anti-Trump Republicans George Conway, Barbara Comstock, and J. Michael Luttig argue the Federalist Society has “…conspicuously declined to speak out against the constitutional and other legal excesses of Mr. Trump and his administration.”
In response the three are announcing the formation of a new legal non-profit, Society for the Rule of Law Institute, they say will “rebuild a conservative legal movement that supports and defends American democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law.” In reality, the new group has less to do with promoting conservative legal theory and more with lobbying and pro-corporate deregulation.
George Conway, the infamous ex-husband of Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, is a former partner at Wachtell Lipton, a lobbying firm with deep ties in the defense and airline industries. His co-authors, Barbara Comstock – a lawyer and former anti-Trump Republican Congresswoman – and former U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig both have close ties corporate interests as well. Comstock has lobbied on behalf of Carnival Cruise Corporation, the fin-tech industry, and serves as a senior advisor to the K Street firm Baker Donelson. J. Michael Luttig left his cushy judgeship for the lucrative job of general counsel for Boeing – a position he held from 2006 until 2019.
The legal scholars being promoted by the three anti-Trump lawyers and their new legal group have just as equally concerning corporate and political ties. Former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell, a legal scholar the group says is a “model for a new and more responsible conservative legal movement” clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan who led the high court’s liberal-wing. McConnell, far from a conservative, holds a fairly hardline libertarian view of the law – often ruling against government attempts to regulate corporations – and was vocally critical of the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision.
