Trump asks judge to recuse herself

Lawyers cite past statements

Attorneys for Donald Trump on Monday asked US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to disqualify herself from presiding over Trump’s federal election obstruction case, saying Chutkan appears to have prejudged the former president’s guilt based on statements she made in past cases involving Jan. 6, 2021, riot defendants.

‘‘Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial -— and may believe that she can do so — her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings,’’ Trump attorney John F. Lauro wrote in the recusal motion. ‘‘The public will reasonably and understandably question whether Judge Chutkan arrived at all of her decisions in this matter impartially.”

By law, federal judges are supposed to disqualify themselves from any proceeding in which their ‘‘impartiality might reasonably be questioned,’’ or in which they have ‘‘a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.’’

However, the law leaves it up to the judges themselves to decide after hearing from both sides. Chutkan gave prosecutors until Thursday to respond to the motion, and Trump’s defense until Sunday to make any reply. If Chutkan refuses the request, Trump’s defense lawyers may appeal.

The question is not necessarily what judges have said in other court proceedings but their fairness toward a specific defendant in a specific case, legal analysts said.

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that ‘‘only in the rarest circumstances’’ can a judge be forced to recuse from a case based on ‘‘opinions formed . . . on the basis of facts introduced or events occurring’’ in court.

In seeking Chutkan’s recusal in the D.C. case, Trump’s lawyers quoted from statements she made at sentencing hearings for two people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

People in the mob ‘‘were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution,’’ Chutkan said at a hearing in October, adding — in a line that Trump’s attorneys italicized for emphasis — ‘‘It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.’’

Lauro wrote that the meaning of Chutkan’s statement in the first case ‘‘is inescapable — President Trump is free, but should not be.’’ He called that ‘‘an apparent prejudgment of guilt’’ that should be disqualifying.

Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University School of Law, said views that a judge expresses at the sentencing of one defendant ‘‘cannot be the basis for recusing them in the case of a different defendant.’’

But Charles Wolfram, a scholar of legal ethics at Cornell University, said that comments made by a judge in one case can create an untenable appearance of bias in another. ‘‘I think it’s close to the line,’’ Wolfram said