‘You Can See Where Trump’s Coming From’: CNN’s Elie Honig Says Trump Recusal Motion ‘Not Outrageous’ But ‘Extreme Longshot’
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said ex-President Donald Trump’s motion demanding Federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan step down is “not outrageous” — even adding ” — but is an “extreme longshot” legally speaking.
Trump attorneys filed a motion demanding Judge Chutkan recuse herself on the basis of statements she made while sentencing other defendants who participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol
On Tuesday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Honig expressed some empathy for Trump’s position, but said the motion is a lonshot based on the law:
POPPY HARLOW: So Trump’s lawyers argue statements like those and others mean she should not be able to hear this case against Trump. They add “only if this trial is administered by a judge who appears entirely impartial could the public ever accept the outcome as justice.”
Senior legal analyst Elie Honig is here with us. I know recusals don’t happen often in situations like this. There are other statements that are interesting that she’s made. Things like when she said last year, “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” They, talking about, you would think Trump. What do you think?
ELIE HONIG: So this is an extreme longshot, legally speaking. But you can see where Donald Trump’s coming from. It’s not an outrageous motion when you see various statements that Judge Charlton has made in the course of handling the prosecutions and sentencings of other January 6 rioters.
She has said things that seem to pretty clearly suggest that she believed years ago Donald Trump should have been charged, should have been held accountable. And she was essentially making the point at these sentencings that, yes, you’re being prosecuted, rightly so, for storming the Capitol, but more responsible people are not.
The problem, however, with Donald Trump’s argument legally is that A: it’s really hard to get a judge to recuse himself or herself. And, B, you can’t base a recusal motion for the most part on something that a judge said during a court proceeding, basically because that’s a judge’s job. They have to take all the evidence in front of them, make decisions, make determinations sometimes about the relative culpability of other people. And so the Supreme Court has basically said if you’re trying to recuse the judge, you have to do it based on something outside of whatever she said in the scope of an actual case in court.
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
