Donald Trump’s attorneys are requesting that Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan recuse herself from presiding over the federal election obstruction case brought by partisan prosecutor Jack Smith in federal court.
“Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned. Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying,” the filing explains. “Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial—and may believe that she can do so—her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings, regardless of outcome. The public will reasonably and understandably question whether Judge Chutkan arrived at all of her decisions in this matter impartially, or in fulfillment of her prior negative statements regarding President Trump.”
Despite Chutkan’s obvious bias, which should have disqualified her from presiding over this case from the beginning, Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University School of Law, believes the motion will fail.
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“I understand why Trump would like another judge, and I understand why Trump would like another venue, but nothing I’ve heard — including the fact that Judge Chutkan has sentenced harshly other January 6 defendants — would warrant a recusal,” he told the Washington Post.
But, Chutkan has a history of making partisan comments about the Capitol riot. In December 2021, during the sentencing of rioter Robert Palmer, Chutkan said, “He went to the Capitol because, despite election results which were clear-cut, despite the fact that multiple court challenges all over the country had rejected every single one of the challenges to the election, Mr. Palmer didn’t like the result. He didn’t like the result, and he didn’t want the transition of power to take place because his guy lost.”
In October of 2022, Chutkan falsely described the Capitol riot as “nothing less than an attempt to violently overthrow the government, the legally, lawfully, peacefully elected government by individuals who were mad that their guy lost.”
She continued, “I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats they were wearing and the garb. And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country; and not to the principles of democracy. It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
Both of these comments were cited in the filing. However, Gillers says, “Things such as what is said or done within the four corners of a case before her as a judge cannot be a basis for recusal because she’s doing her job. That’s what judges do.”
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