Judge Luttig reveals why he spoke so slowly at Jan. 6 hearing

[LetMyPeopleVote]

59. For this thread

Link to tweet

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1538266496371245057.html

Thank you so much for this thread, Mr. Hagan, @joehagansays. You almost presciently understood precisely what I was at least attempting to do to the best of my abilities during the hearing Thursday.

What you could not know, and did not know, but I will tell you now, is that I believed I had an obligation to the Select Committee and to the country, first to formulate . . . then to measure . . . and then . . . to meter out . . .
every . . . single . . . word . . . that I spoke . . . , carefully . . . exactingly . . . and . . . deliberately, so that the words I spoke were pristine clear and would be heard, and therefore understood, as such.

I believed Thursday that I had that high responsibility and obligation -- to myself, even if to no other. Also please bear in mind that Thursday was the first time in 68 years, to my knowledge, I had ever been on national television, let alone national television like that.

And though not scared, I was concerned that I do my very best and not embarrass myself, as I think anyone who found themselves in that frightening circumstance would be.

I decided to respond to your at once astute and understanding tweet finally this afternoon, because I have been watching the tweets all day suggesting that I am recovering from a severe stroke, and my friends, out of their concern for me and my family,
have been earnestly forwarding me these tweets, asking me if I am alright. Such is social media, I understand. But I profoundly believe in social media's foundational, in fact revolutionary, value and contribution to Free Speech in our country,
and for that reason I willingly accept the occasional bad that comes from social media, in return for the much more frequent good that comes from it -- at least from the vastly more responsible, respectful speech on those media.

That is why, 16 years after my retirement from the Bench, even then as a very skeptical, curmudgeonly old federal judge, I created a Facebook account and then a Twitter account -- slowly . . . very slowly . . . one account first . . . and then . . . followed . . . by the other.

All of this said, I am not recovering from a stroke or any other malady, I promise. Thankfully, I have never been as sick or as so debilitated as that ever in my life, and would not want that for anyone. Knock on wood, I have never even been really sick a day in my life.

I was more ready, prepared and intellectually focused (I had thought) during Thursday's hearing than I have ever been for anything in my life. I gather my face appeared "too red" for some on Twitter, betraying to them serious illness. The explanation was more innocent than that.

At the last minute, I had been able during the weekend preceding my testimony to help my daughter get settled into her new home, where the temperatures were in the upper 90s, and where I was appreciatively, though unwittingly, to get just a little bit of needed suntan!

What I will say, though, is this. And I think it explains it all. All my life, I have said (as to myself, and at times, by way of sarcastic prescription for others) that I never . . . talk . . . any . . . faster . . . than . . . my . . . mind . . . can . . . think.

I will proudly assure everyone on Twitter that I was riveted, laser-like as never before, on that promise to myself beginning promptly at the hour of 1:00 pm Thursday afternoon.

What is more, as consciously as one can be aware of something subconsciously, I was, in your poetic words of which I was, and am myself, incapable even of conjuring, Mr. Hagan, supremely conscious that,