Former President Donald Trump is seeking to remove the judge presiding over his federal criminal case concerning the subversion of the 2020 election results.
Trump’s lawyers argued in a Monday filing that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, should recuse herself from the case for past statements that they say make her appear biased, arguing her words indicate an “apparent prejudgment of guilt.”
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“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,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing.
Trump pointed to Chutkan’s prior statements that appeared to refer to Trump’s role in influencing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, prompting questions about her ability to decide his case impartially.
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.”
“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. … It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day,” Chutkan told defendant Christine Priola, according to court filings.
Trump’s attorneys argued the comment indicated the judge’s belief that Trump “should be prosecuted and imprisoned.”
“The public meaning of this statement is inescapable — President Trump is free, but should not be,” they wrote.
Constitutional attorney Andrew Lieb of Lieb at Law told the Washington Examiner that the decision to recuse is ultimately left to Chutkan and that the chances that she recuses from this case are slim to none.
“You and I would be more likely to both independently buy lottery tickets tonight — different states — and both win and split the Mega Millions,” Lieb said. The attorney said Chutkan’s decision is appealable but that Trump wouldn’t prevail.
“It is appealable, but not appealable until a final order (guilty verdict, if that happens) in most circumstances,” Lieb added.
Trump’s request for Chutkan’s recusal comes as he is fending off three other criminal prosecutions, all of which he has pleaded not guilty to charges that could land him decades behind bars. Meanwhile, his indictments have only bolstered his lead in the polls among other GOP contenders seeking to face off against Biden during the 2024 general election.
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The former president has entered a not-guilty plea in the case before Chutkan. Trump is charged with four felony counts relating to an alleged scheme to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
The case was brought against Trump in August by special counsel Jack Smith, who has also filed charges against Trump over the alleged mishandling of classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
