Judge Won’t Step Down in Trump Election Case

As the sole judge presiding over the case, it was U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s own decision that she will remain.

Donald Trump tours Drake Enterprises, an automotive parts manufacturer, before speaking to guest at a small rally in Clinton Township, Mich., on Sept. 27, 2023. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has denied former President Donald Trump’s motion that she step down from the case, ruling that “recusal is not warranted in this case.”

“By contrast, this court has from the beginning repeated its commitment ’to ensure the orderly administration of justice in this case as [in] any other case,'” she wrote in the Wednesday ruling (pdf).

“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 [Constitutional] promise in this case.”

As she is the sole judge presiding over the case, it was her own decision as to whether she would step down.

President Trump had argued that Judge Chutkan had made biased remarks about him while sentencing others charged for crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach events.

Special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting the case against President Trump for the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that there was no valid basis for the judge to step down because the allegedly biased remarks were made during judicial proceedings.

Judge Chutkan echoed the DOJ arguments, writing that “the court’s statements were made in the course of prior judicial proceedings, [and] did not pertain to Defendant’s case.”

“They arose not, as the defense speculates, from watching the news,” she wrote.

Ruling

She ruled that her remark “contained nothing akin to the explicit and often disparaging expressions of opinion” of a precedent case President Trump’s legal team referenced.

“This court has never labeled Defendant a ’major conspirator' in any crime, much less the ones with which he is charged in this case,” Judge Chutkan wrote.

The judge’s 20 page ruling takes issue with many of the cases President Trump’s legal team referenced, writing that they are not comparable to his case. Several of those cases “involved significant conflicts of interest” that created the “appearance of partiality,” which was not the case here, she wrote.

Judge Chutkan had sentenced Robert Scott Palmer to 63 months in prison for assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon. She also sentenced Christine Priola to 15 months in prison for obstructing an official proceeding.

During those sentencing hearings, which were two of dozens of Jan. 6-related cases she heard, she referenced President Trump, but not by name.

“The statements directly reflected facts proffered and arguments made by those defendants,” she wrote in the ruling, adding that both defendants said they attended the rally to support President Trump.

“The statements certainly do not manifest a deep-seated prejudice that would make fair judgment impossible.”

She wrote that she had never taken the position that, as the defense described it, “President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,” and there is no citation anywhere of her having uttered those words.

She called President Trump’s arguments for her recusal an unreasonable “inferential leap” and wrote that a reasonable observer would recognize that her comments were made in reference to the defendants’ arguments, and not “issuing vague declarations about third parties’ potential guilt in a hypothetical future case.”

Gag Order Motion

Judge Chutkan is also set to rule on a motion the DOJ brought, requesting a gag order that would restrict what President Trump is allowed to say about the case or the prosecutors, and require court approval for any polling the Trump campaign wanted to do in the district.

The DOJ had argued that President Trump’s social media posts constituted a “disinformation campaign” that could sway the Washington, D.C. jurors in his favor while tarnishing the reputation of the prosecutors.

It referenced an Aug. 4 post President Trump made on Truth Social: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

“He has made good on his threat,” the filing reads. “Since the indictment in this case, the defendant has spread disparaging and inflammatory public posts on Truth Social on a near-daily basis.”

President Trump’s attorneys opposed Mr. Smith’s request in a filing that described the claims as “bizarre” and “unconstitutional.”

They argued that from the beginning, the prosecution has influenced public opinion regarding President Trump, his campaign, and the criminal case, and that President Trump’s speech to defend himself was a constitutional right.

“On August 1, 2023, the prosecution publicly released a forty-five-page speaking Indictment that read very much like a campaign press release,” the filing reads. “The prosecution then expanded with gratuitous, out-of-court statements wrongly insinuating that President Trump was responsible for the events of January 6—an allegation not made in the Indictment.”

They argued the claims that President Trump’s posts about potential witnesses would scare them off were unfounded, as several potential witnesses have readily spoken to the media. They also dismissed claims that his posts would “magically transform” jurors in his favor, noting that Washington, D.C. voters overwhelmingly voted for President Biden in the 2020 election.

“The prosecution does not present one shred of evidence to demonstrate either of these claims.”

They also claimed the proposed gag order was anything but “narrowly tailored,” as the DOJ suggests.

The term comes from a ruling that stated “a statute is narrowly tailored if it targets and eliminates no more than the exact source of the ‘evil’ it seeks to remedy.”

With the lack of evidence, the prosecution, therefore, cannot come close to “eliminat[ing] ... the exact source of the evil it purportedly seeks to remedy,” they argued.