The 'fatal problems' with Trump’s efforts to disqualify judge in DC election case

13 September 2023

On Monday, September 11, attorneys for Donald Trump asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to recuse herself from special counsel Jack Smith's 2020 election case against the former president.

In an article published by Slate on September 13, attorney/journalist Mark Joseph Stern lays out some reasons why Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, should stay on the case — regardless of what Trump and his legal team want.

"This play is so poorly conceived and executed that it is difficult to believe the former president's lawyers actually want to succeed," Stern argues. "Monday's motion is so tardy that Chutkan could simply deny it as untimely. It fares no better on the merits, fox-trotting around an insurmountable Supreme Court precedent strictly limiting recusal that dooms the whole endeavor."

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Stern continues, "It seems, then, that Trump's real move here is extralegal: He wants to undermine Chutkan's authority to preemptively delegitimize any sentence she hands down. The audience for this recusal motion isn't Chutkan. It's the court of public opinion — the voters, activists, media figures, GOP lawmakers, aspiring insurrectionists, and future fake electors who might all help Trump refuse to accept a guilty verdict and the sentence that accompanies it."

The attorney/journalist notes that one of the "fatal problems" with the recusal motion by Trump's lawyers is the fact that it is "far too late for the court to consider it."

"Under D.C. Circuit precedent, which binds Chutkan, a party 'must bring a disqualification motion at the earliest possible moment after obtaining knowledge of facts demonstrating the basis for such a claim,'" Stern explains. "This rule prevents parties from deploying these motions as a delay tactic. Yet that is what Trump now seeks to do."

Read Mark Joseph Stern's full article for Slate at this link.

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