District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday denied a request by former President Donald Trump’s legal team to recuse herself from his 2020 election interference trial in Washington.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday denied a request by former President Donald Trump’s legal team to recuse herself from his 2020 election interference trial in Washington.
Lawyers for the 77-year-old former president had argued that statements made by Chutkan while presiding over the trials of defendants who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 are “disqualifying” and would “taint” the proceedings against Trump.
“[T]he statements certainly do not manifest a deep-seated prejudice that would make fair judgment impossible — the standard for recusal based on statements with intrajudicial origins,” Chutkan, 61, wrote in her opinion.
Chutkan argued in her opinion that the statements “fall short of manifesting ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that the court has conducted itself ‘in a manner supporting disqualification.’”
In their motion for recusal, Trump’s attorneys cited Chutkan’s remarks during the October 2022 sentencing of convicted Capitol rioter Christine Priola, accusing the judge of implying that the former president should be behind bars for his actions on the day of the riot.
“[T]he 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.
