Trump's gambit to get Judge Chutkan booted from DC case is 'virtually impossible': analysis

Former President Donald Trump has been trying to get Judge Tanya Chutkan booted from overseeing his Jan. 6 case in Washington D.C. based on comments she made while sentencing a rioter who stormed the United States Capitol.

However, an analysis written by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern argues that Trump has "no chance" at succeeding with this strategy.

In their analysis, the two authors break down the remarks that Chutkan made that Trump claimed prove that she is biased against him.

"The 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 county and not to the principles of democracy," Chutkan said in remarks recently seized upon by Trump. "It’s blind loyalty to one person, who, by the way, remains free to this day."

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Lithwick and Stern argue that this comment, variations of which have been made by multiple judges overseeing Jan. 6-related trials, falls laughably short of what would be needed to compel a higher court to remove Chutkan from the case.

"Chutkan’s comment shows not actual proof of bias, but rather a perfectly defensible viewpoint that’s shared widely among her colleagues on the bench," they argue. "Second, even if it did evince bias, it does not begin to rise to the level necessary to trigger recusal under federal law. The same standards that make it immensely difficult to force Judge Aileen Cannon off the Mar-a-Lago case (despite her actual showing of obvious bias in Trump litigation) make it virtually impossible to force Chutkan off the Jan. 6 case."

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