“Change The Facts, Change The Outcome”

 Trump wants to remove Chutkan from his D.C. case, mostly because she isn’t Aileen “Loose” Cannon. There’s a problem with that, but the problem isn’t this:

"Norm, Trump attorneys are pointing to Judge Chutkan's comments made in various cases involving other January 6th rioters," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "What do you make of that argument?" 

"Well, Wolf, there needs to be a reasonable appearance of bias or partiality, and I don't think that these statements that Judge Chutkan made in those other cases amount to that," said Eisen. "She's had to assess the larger context of who's responsible here as part of sentencing, including because those defendants have, at times, raised it. So if you look at the case law on what amounts to bias, this is not it. This motion is overwhelmingly likely to fail." 

"What do you think?" asked Wolf, turning to Cordero. 

"I think that's right," Cordero agreed. "It is a fairly high standard for a judge to make the recusal decision. Her statement was strong in terms of the fact that it was directed directly against the former president, who now is the defendant in the case before her, but the context is also important. The context of it is that she feels in consideration of the other January 6th related defendants. So it's not as if she was making these comments extraneously or without any prompting. It was in the context of prosecutions for the event of January 6th."

First, Blitzer is trying to sound “objective” and “impartial” with the sweeping reference to multiple, unspecified “comments.” But the law requires specifics. Like the specific statements made by the Judge in a sentencing hearing of a J6 defendant, in the photo above. That’s from Trump’s motion to recuse.

But if you read it, Chutkan is citing the defendant’s argument that others, not charged, were responsible for J6; and Chutkan is accepting, while simultaneously discarding the applicability of, that argument to those circumstances. “That is not this court’s position.”

Oops.

Trump has no argument; and even the one he makes here, on the record of another case, undermines his argument. Chutkan did not sua sponte rope unindicted co-conspirators into that case. She was responding to, and even using, the record before the court to explain her sentence to the defendant before her. That’s not only legitimate, it’s desirable. It’s what we expect a judge to do.

Paying attention to the actual facts, in this case the pleadings filed by a party, are much more important than spinning glittering generalizations into pontifications you can spout on cable news.

Mind the gasbags. They come on all sides of the political divide.