Since Judge Tanya Chutkan wasn't appointed by Donald Trump to the federal bench, there's no way he can get a fair trial if the case stays in her hands, he whines.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for recusal of the judge presiding over the federal case that alleges he illegally conspired to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, according to the docket in federal court in Washington, D.C. Chutkan, 61, was appointed to the district in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama. She is one of the only federal judges in D.C. who has delivered sentences against defendants in cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that are longer than the sentences that the DOJ asked for, according to NBC News.
On Saturday, Chutkan gave Trump's team until 5 p.m. ET on Monday to respond to prosecutors' request for a protective order. The order would prevent the former president and his legal team from sharing discovery materials with the public. Trump's attorneys asked for more time to prepare their response, which Chutkan swiftly denied.
"THERE IS NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL WITH THE JUDGE 'ASSIGNED' TO THE REDICULOUS FREEDOM OF SPEECH/FAIR ELECTIONS CASE. EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, AND SO DOES SHE," Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social Sunday morning.
Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Lauro, will welcome testimony from former Vice President Mike Pence in the federal case Trump is facing for his alleged efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Mike Pence will be one of our best witnesses at trial,” Lauro said Sunday during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “I read his book very carefully, and if he testifies consistent with his book, then President Trump will be acquitted,” Lauro added.
Trump is currently facing 78 felony charges across three criminal cases. In the latest indictment unveiled Tuesday, federal prosecutors charged Trump with four felony counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
The 45-page document revealed key details from Pence’s testimony to the grand jury, including that Pence took contemporaneous notes of some conversations he had with Trump in the days leading up to Jan. 6. In one conversation, Pence recalled Trump falsely telling him that the Justice Department was finding “major infractions” related to election fraud.
Despite the revelations in the indictment, Lauro said Sunday that he does not believe Pence’s testimony would be enough to prove that what Trump did in the days leading up to the violent riot on the Capitol was criminal.
“I cannot wait until I have the opportunity to cross-examine Mr. Pence, because what he will do is completely eliminate any doubt that Mr. Trump, President Trump firmly believed that the election irregularities had led to inappropriate results,” Lauro said.
Tauro also agrees with congressional Democrats that the trial needs to be televised, which should be a gigantic alarm against doing that. Trump and Tauro want this case tried the court of public opinion for a distinct reason.
America's response to this week's indictment of Donald Trump is providing a window into more than just how Americans view his alleged actions per se — but also into what they think it means for democracy itself.
- Half the nation believes Trump tried to stay in office beyond his term through illegal and unconstitutional means.
- To most Americans, such an effort would mean undermining democracy.
- For them and for a majority of Americans overall, the series of indictments and ongoing investigations against Trump are seen as "defending democracy" and "upholding the rule of law."
- Just under a third of the country thinks Trump was trying to stay in office through legal, constitutional means — legal, in part because most of them (and including most Republicans) believe Trump's claim that the election was illegitimate in the first place.
- For most Republicans, the series of indictments are also personal, seeing them as "an attack" on people like them — echoing some of Trump's rhetoric on the campaign trail.
- And big majorities of Republicans think the indictments are an attempt to stop Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
In fact more than 85% of Republicans in this CBS News poll believe the indictments are meant to stop Trump's campaign, and more than 55% believe these indictments are "an attack on people like us". There's no way these charges are going to result in anything other than a Trump landslide in the primaries. Oh, and two thirds of Republicans don't believe Biden won in 2020.
We'll see where this goes, but it's not going to be pretty, and we have tens of millions cheering the cancer on.
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