Former U.S. President Donald Trump filed a motion on Monday seeking to disqualify U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan from presiding over the criminal case charging him with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. Trump said last month he planned to seek Chutkan’s recusal as well as a change of venue for the case.
Trump seeks disqualification of US judge in DC election case
Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP)
Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday asked the federal judge presiding over his election subversion case in Washington to recuse herself, saying her past public statements about the former president call into question whether she can be fair.
The recusal motion from Trump’s lawyers takes aim at U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama. She has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of Jan. 6 defendants.
Trump argued in a court filing that Chutkan’s prior statements appearing to refer to Trump’s role in influencing the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters raise questions about her impartiality in the case.
The court filing cites a remark Chutkan made at a 2022 sentencing hearing for a Capitol riot defendant in which she suggested that the rioter was motivated by “blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
Trump’s lawyers argued that the comment indicated the judge’s belief that Trump “should be prosecuted and imprisoned.”
The request that she step aside is the latest flashpoint in already delicate relations between the defense team and the judge, who has repeatedly warned against inflammatory public comments from Trump but has nonetheless been lambasted on social media by him.
“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 defense team wrote. “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.”
Chutkan has often has handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6 cases that are harsher than Justice Department prosecutors recommended. The judge also previously ruled against Trump in a separate Jan. 6 case. In November 2021, she refused his request to block the release of documents to the U.S. House’s Jan. 6 committee by asserting executive privilege.
Trump’s lawyers also cited Chutkan’s comments from the sentencing of a rioter who attacked police officers working to hold back the angry pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6. During the December 2021 hearing for Robert Palmer, who was sentenced to more than five years in prison, Chutkan said the defendant “made a very good point” that the “people who exhorted” and encouraged him “to go and take action and to fight” had not been charged.
“Public statements of this sort create a perception of prejudgment incompatible with our justice system. In a case this widely watched, of such monumental significance, the public must have the utmost confidence that the Court will administer justice neutrally and dispassionately,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
