Sept. 15 (UPI) — Prosecutors countered a request by former President Donald Trump to get the judge presiding over his upcoming federal election interference trial to recuse herself, saying there were no grounds for her to step aside.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s office filed a 20-page motion with the court, saying Trump had failed to prove any bias by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan following two previous rulings on Jan. 6 riot cases in which she referred to the former president.
Chutkan, who was appointed in 2014 by President Barack Obama, made the commentary in 2021 and 2022 as she sentenced two defendants who took part in the violent mob that stormed Congress to disrupt certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
Trump’s lawyers filed the motion on Monday to get Chutkan removed, citing her open repudiation of the mob as alleged evidence of bias and unfitness to preside over the criminal case.
However, there was “no valid basis, under the relevant law and facts, for the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan, United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, to disqualify herself in this proceeding,” Smith wrote in the filing, which was submitted to Chutkan in response to Trump’s petition to remove her.
In the rebuttal, senior assistant special counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom accused Trump of cherry-picking Chutkan’s comments in the rulings in an attempt to discredit the judge.
“Because the defendant’s motion fails to establish any bias by the Court, much less the deep-seated antagonism required for recusal, the Court has a duty to continue to oversee this proceeding,” they wrote.
The legal argument Trump used to justify recusal “both takes out of context the court’s words from prior judicial proceedings and misstates the proper legal standards governing judicial recusals,” prosecutors also argued.
“The Court was appropriately responding to — and ultimately rejecting — a common argument raised by scores of Jan. 6 offenders: that they deserved leniency because their actions were inspired by, or were not as serious as, those of others who contributed to the riot but had not been held responsible-including former president Donald J. Trump, the defendant in this case.”
It’s rare for judges to disqualify themselves in a criminal case, while those who have typically made the move to avoid conflicts of interest or in cases where they may hold a financial stake.
Prosecutors repeatedly referred to legal precedents that give judges broad leeway to state their opinions from the bench during rulings.
“The Court … did not state that the defendant was legally or morally culpable for the events of Jan. 6 or that he deserved punishment,” they wrote. “Tellingly, the defendant does not cite a single case in which recusal has been warranted on remotely similar facts.”
Previously, Chutkan participated in other cases involving Trump and his supporters, including a decision denying his bid in 2021 to prevent records from being turned over to the select House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which she wrote, “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not president.”
