USA: Judge rejects Trump’s request to withdraw from proceedings

Former US President Donald Trump has failed in his demand that Judge Tanya Chutkan withdraw from a trial related to attempted election fraud because of bias.

Trump’s lawyers had argued that the judge was not neutral but was entering into the proceedings with a preliminary determination. They cited Chutkan’s previous statements. The judge at a court in the US capital Washington rejected Trump’s request on Wednesday (local time), according to her twenty-page decision. It says, among other things, that her statements were misinterpreted.

According to legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers, Chutkan can decide for herself whether to declare herself biased, as he told The Washington Post.

Trump’s impeachment

Trump is facing federal charges in Washington in connection with attempted election fraud. It’s about his campaign against his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, which culminated in the violent attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021. The 77-year-old is accused, among other things, of conspiring against the United States. The Republican presidential candidate for the 2024 election is facing a total of four different charges in the middle of the campaign for a possible second term.

In recent months, Chutkan had already led several cases against rioters who took part in the storming of the Capitol. In one of the proceedings, she explained that the rioters had not acted in the interests of the constitution, but of a man – “in blind loyalty to a person who, by the way, is still at large today.” Among other things, Trump’s lawyers cited this reference to Trump in the application for bias. The meaning of this statement is clear: in Chutkan’s opinion, Trump is free, but should not be, they wrote in the application in mid-September.