Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday lost a bid to have a federal judge remove herself from presiding over his criminal election interference case in Washington, D.C.
Judge Tanya Chutkan said in a court ruling that her recusal was “not warranted in this case.”
Trump’s lawyers had argued that Chutkan made “disqualifying” statements about him in separate cases involving two defendants charged over their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The defense attorneys claimed Chutkan’s statements showed prejudice against Trump and that she believed he “should be prosecuted and imprisoned.”
The judge rejected that claim Wednesday, writing that “the court has never taken the position the defense ascribes to it.”
“Based on its review of the law, facts, and record, the court concludes that a reasonable observer would not doubt its ability to uphold that promise in this case,” Chutkan wrote in her 20-page opinion.
Trump is charged in a four-count indictment in U.S. District Court in Washington with conspiring to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
He has pleaded not guilty in the case, which is one of four pending criminal cases he faces.
The Jan. 6 riot, in which a violent mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol after Trump falsely claimed at a nearby rally that the election was rigged, is central to special counsel Jack Smith’s case.
In their bid for Chutkan to recuse herself, Trump’s lawyers pointed to her remarks in sentencing hearings for two people, Christie Priola and Robert Palmer, who were convicted for their conduct during the riot.
During Priola’s sentencing, Chutkan said, “The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.”
“It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day,” she said.
When Palmer was sentenced, Chutkan told him, “Mr. Palmer — you have made a very good point, one that has been made before — that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged.”
Lawyers for Trump said that the remark in Priola’s hearing sent an “inescapable” message: “President Trump is free, but should not be.”
And they argued that her statements at Palmer’s sentencing “reflect her apparent opinion” that Trump’s conduct “supports charges (otherwise, she would not have characterized the point as ‘very good.’).”
But Chutkan said in her opinion that the statements in question “directly reflected facts proffered and arguments made by those defendants.”
“And the court specifically identified the intrajudicial sources that informed its statements,” she added.
Trump had previously slammed Chutkan as a “biased, Trump Hating Judge.”
Chutkan, who was appointed to the bench in 2014 under then-President Barack Obama, has delivered longer penalties than federal prosecutors had asked for in multiple Jan. 6 defendants’ cases.
Smith has asked Chutkan to impose a partial gag order that would limit what Trump can say about prospective witnesses, as well as court officials and other parties in the case.
Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday urged Chutkan not to impose those restrictions, claiming they are an attempt to “unconstitutionally silence” the former president while he runs for reelection in 2024.
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