There’s a high bar for recusal, and legal experts had widely considered Trump’s request to be a long shot aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the case publicly that could only sour the relationship between the judge and the defense in court.
Really, would he do that? 😂
...defense lawyers cited statements she had made in two sentencing hearings of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol in which they said she had appeared to suggest that Trump deserved to be prosecuted and held accountable. They said the comments suggested a bias against him that could taint the proceedings.
But Chutkan vigorously objected to the those characterizations of her comments.
“It bears noting that the court has never taken the position the defense ascribes to it: that former ‘President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,’” Chutkan wrote. “And the defense does not cite any instance of the court ever uttering those words or anything similar.”
It’s the second time Trump has tried unsuccessfully to get a judge removed from one of the criminal cases against him. Judge Juan Manuel Merchan, who is overseeing Trump’s New York hush money criminal case, rejected similar demands that he step aside, saying he is certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”