An Obama-appointed federal judge rejected a motion from former President Donald Trump calling on her to recuse herself from the case involving his challenge to the results of the 2020 election Wednesday.
United States District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan denied the motion in a 20-page opinion after former President Trump’s attorneys cited statements she made while sentencing two defendants in cases connected to the riot at the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Special counsel Jack Smith secured a four-count indictment of Trump relating to his efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election on Aug. 1 after he secured a 37-count indictment against Trump in June based on an investigation into allegations surrounding classified documents.
“[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,” Chutkan said during the sentencing hearing for Christine Priola, according to the court filing. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
“The issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me,” she said while sentencing Robert Scott Palmer, another defendant in a case stemming from the riot. “I don’t have any influence on that. I have my opinions, but they are not relevant.”
In her ruling, Chutkan denied claims that her comments during the sentencing hearings were indicative of bias.
“The court has never taken the position the defense ascribes to it: that former ‘President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,’” Chutkan wrote in her opinion.
Former President Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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