Trump wants another judge to hear election fraud case
Former US President Donald Trump has demanded that the federal judge arbitrarily chosen to oversee his trial on charges of conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election defeat will not be fair to him and should be replaced.
Trump also argues that the case should be moved from Washington, D.C., whose residents overwhelmingly voted against him in two elections, to another city, and that jury nominees should be selected from among registered voters.
On Sunday, Trump said on the Truth Social website in large letters, “There is no way I can get a fair trial with an ‘appointed’ judge,” referring to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
Trump also called Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith “insane” and said that “thug prosecutors” are trying to prevent him from commenting on the case while “illegally leaking anything and everything” to the mainstream news media.
Despite Trump’s comments, his attorneys have not filed motions to recuse Chutkan or to move the trial outside of Washington. On Sunday, Trump’s attorney John Lauro suggested the trial be held in the state of West Virginia, a state Trump easily won in the 2020 election.
Chutkan handed down prison sentences to all 38 Trump supporters who went to trial on charges of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to protest Congress’ approval of President Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
In the four cases Chutkan has tried, prosecutors have not sought jail time for the defendants.
U.S. media reports that Chutkan, among the two dozen federal judges who heard the cases on Jan. 6, has established herself as one of the toughest judges.
Last week, a federal grand jury in Washington issued a four-count indictment against Trump that Smith sought. Trump pleaded not guilty before a U.S. Magistrate on Thursday, but Chutkan has now taken control of the case and plans to set a trial date for an Aug. 28 hearing.
Last year, a specially created House committee examined the disorderly conduct issue in detail at a public hearing, and Chutkan played a role in gathering evidence. Trump tried to block the release of documents requested by the commission, citing executive privilege even though he was no longer president and Biden had given the go-ahead for the documents to be released to the National Archives.
Chutkan ruled that Trump could not claim that his presidential privilege “exists indefinitely.”
Chutkan wrote, in part, “Presidents are not kings, and the plaintiff is not the president.” She said Trump’s claims “are not an appropriate basis for a change of venue,” writing:
“A jury’s political leanings are not, in and of themselves, evidence that that jury cannot fairly and impartially consider the evidence presented and apply the law as instructed by the court.”
Trump’s main rival in the upcoming Republican Party election, Florida Governor Ron Desantis, meanwhile, said unequivocally that Trump lost the 2020 election.
“Of course he lost,” Desantis said in an interview with NBC News published Monday. “Joe Biden is the president.”
The Florida governor said Republicans will also lose in 2024 if they focus only on the past election and the former president’s legal troubles.
“If the election is a referendum on Joe Biden’s policies and the failures that we’ve seen, and we present a positive vision for the future, we will win the presidency,” Desantis told NBC. – “On the other hand, if the election is not about January 20, 2025, but January 6, 2021, or what document was left outside the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago, then we will lose.
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