Todd Blanche Confuses Aileen Cannon’s Prior Trump Reversal with Tanya Chutkan’s Individualized Guilt
John Lauro is the Trump lawyer who submitted and signed the motion for recusal in Trump’s January 6 case, and so virtually all commentators are attributing the motion to him. But Todd Blanche also appears on the document.
That means one of Trump’s lawyers from the stolen documents case, in which Aileen Cannon — confirmed in the period after Trump lost the election and cozy with Leonard Leo — chose not to recuse herself after a blistering reversal over her earlier decision to butt in last summer, in which Aileen Cannon has done nothing (nothing public, at least) to preserve the Sixth Amendment rights of Trump’s co-defendants, but has instead served the interests of the Trump-paid lawyers representing them, has remained silent about any conflict in that case but signed onto a claim of conflict with Tanya Chutkan.
There is an overwhelming public interest in ensuring the perceived fairness of these proceedings. In a highly charged political season, naturally all Americans, and in fact, the entire world, are observing these proceedings closely. Only if this trial is administered by a judge who appears entirely impartial could the public ever accept the outcome as justice.
Todd Blanche’s willingness to sign onto this motion only underscores the bad faith of it.
The substance of the claimed conflict is remarkably thin: In the sentencing hearings of Robert Palmer and Christine Priola, Chutkan said something about those who planned the riot. Between the two hearings — the first in December 2021 and the second in October 2022 — Trump’s lawyers claim they show that Chutkan has already formed an opinion about Trump’s guilt, even while they acknowledge that Chutkan’s language addresses claims of incitement with which Trump has not been charged.
These are cherry picks. From Palmer’s for example, Trump’s lawyers found a line in which Chutkan said she had opinions about whether those who planned the riot should be charged, even while she said her opinions are not relevant.
He went to the Capitol because, despite election results which were clear-cut, despite the fact that multiple court challenges all over the country had rejected every single one of the challenges to the election, Mr. Palmer didn’t like the result. He didn’t like the result, and he didn’t want the transition of power to take place because his guy lost. And it is true, Mr. Palmer — you have made a very good point, one that has been made before — that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged. That is not this court’s position. I don’t charge anybody. I don’t negotiate plea offers. I don’t make charging decisions. I sentence people who have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. The issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me. I don’t have any influence on that. I have my opinions, but they are not relevant.
***
So you have a point, that the people who may be the people who planned this and funded it and encouraged it haven’t been charged, but that’s not a reason for you to get a lower sentence.
This is a colloquy that goes on in many January 6 sentencing hearings, because many defendants — up to and including Enrique Tarrio and Joe Biggs — like to blame Trump for their woes. After that happens, whatever judge is presiding, whether appointed by a Republican or Democrat, notes that people are still responsible for their own actions.
This is, in fact, a pretty mild version, even among some Republican appointees.
But Trump’s team ignored Judge Chutkan’s more general commentary about how everyone should treat others with more humanity.
I feel certain that if people would expose themselves to a variety of opinions and sources of information, we might not have had January 6th. But people get very siloed and listen to an echo chamber of information and opinion, and you get a very warped view of what’s really going on in the world; and that may be part of it, but in doing so, you fail to see other people as human beings. And that is one of the things I see here as a judge, is there is a failure to acknowledge other people’s humanity.
From the Priola sentencing, Trump’s lawyers focused on Chutkan’s observation that the person to whom rioters were loyal remained free.
[T]he people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country; and not to the principles of democracy. It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.
This is remarkably thin gruel on which to hang a claim that Chutkan is biased against Trump but not Trump appointed Judges Dabney Friedrich or Tim Kelly, who’ve engaged in similar colloquies.
And it seems tactical. It was coming at some point, but Trump’s team has, after remaining silent for 42 days after this case was assigned to Chutkan, suddenly asked her to assess her own biases in expedited fashion, before ruling on the pending motion about Trump’s own threats against Judge Chutkan and others.
Additionally, given the overriding public interest in ensuring the appearance of fairness in this proceeding, President Trump requests the Court consider this Motion on an expedited basis and, pending resolution, withhold rulings on any other pending motion.
This is a tactical and cynical motion. And Todd Blanche’s participation in it makes it crystal clear that Trump doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass about the bias of Cannon or any appearance of bias they can wring out of Chutkan’s prior comments.
Rather, they’re doing this to claim that her future attempts to preserve the integrity of this proceeding — including to minimize death threats from Trump’s own supporters — instead itself evinces bias on her part.
Update: Here’s the full Priola sentencing transcript.
You are exactly right, Marcy. This motion was filed on the day that Trump was directed to reply to the Government’s sealed motion which is widely expected to call for Trump’s protective order to be varied based on his daily commentary on the case on social media. Trump knows that an unredacted version of that motion is due to be made public any day now, and shortly after that Chutkan will be required to issue an order which will fall somewhere between asking Trump politely to cut it out, and telling him that if she has to raise her voice again he will be going to jail.
Trump wants to keep tainting the jury pool, keep raising money from the rubes, and also play victim when the judge calls him on it.
Bad faith doesn’t begin to describe it.
Bad faith or protecting the record? As Earl says, it is contrary to what Chutkin has evinced, but the motion doesn’t bother me. It will fail, and the judge will remember.
I wonder why Defendant-1 keeps trying to irritate his judges, unless he really thinks that his pet SCOTUS majority will bail him out. Unfortunately for him there are flaws in his thinking because some of these are state charges (civil / criminal) not as easily accessible to SCOTUS on appeal without a federal question to resolve. Also, judges like Chutkan, ABJ, Jones, et al have perceived the potential for appeals and have crafted their opinions with the homework completed.
While that won’t faze Thomas, Alito or ACB, the rest of the Supreme Court will have a harder time swallowing this BS given that Defendant-1` continues to show just how much of a loser he is.
I think it’s obvious that he’s resigned himself to losing in court. He knows he’s guilty. His lawyers know he’s guilty. His co-defendants know he’s guilty. The cult members, not so much.
So while he’ll make every effort to throw sand in the justice machine it will only be to generate headlines and fuel outrage. The judge’s opinion/irritation means nothing when compared to that of the MAGA voters he is desperately trying to convince to come to his rescue.
In short, he’s bet it all on winning the election. The courtroom is nothing more than another stage from which to put on his political theater.
While I agree he’s putting all his legal strategy on winning office, I think his antics have a more immediate intent: He wants to make a trial impossible,
It worked for the fascists in the 1944 sedition case.
I’ve also wondered for a while if his lawyers are hoping he’ll piss the judges off so much they’ll accidentally say something his lawyers can use to move for a mistrial… Because outside of that, pissing off the judge who is presiding over your case strikes me as a REALLY, REALLY stupid move.
The reason I ask this question is because people usually do nothing without a reason, no matter how irrational it might be to someone else, so it might behoove us to think outside the box to figure out what Defendant-1 is trying to do in addition to what he is doing.
Judge Chutkan and Judge Engoron have made it clear that these antics to delay proceedings will instead accelerate accountability. In the case of Judge Engoron his is a bench trial which is really bad news for the defense. Since even one of these convictions can potentially wreck the empire, not having all of the cards in his hand seems incredibly unwise. It’s not like another insurrection will succeed now that we know it’s on the table.
When I picture the conversation trump has with his lawyers I think it comes down to him asking:
“If they find me guilty what’s the chances of me being in prison before the election?”
“Well, we can appeal everything and run out the clock, so…zero.”
“Then you do your thing and let me do mine.”
Is that unwise? Absolutely, but trump has never been a deep thinker. He’ll stick to what he knows and expect to win as he always has, not realizing the game has changed.
Unbidden comes to mind the movie Brazil:
Trump is the baby face guy with the handy instruments of torture.
The winged guy who flies around is confirmation that our ideal society is exactly as it should be: just out of reach.
Oh, and doing the actual work of fixing how fucked up it all is becomes itself a fugitive, ultimately fatal effort.
The acronym MAGA hadn’t been trademarked at that point, otherwise the baby mask getup might have included a ball cap.
So much for projecting the Trumpist vision of Utopia; now, back to our sponsors….
Saw Brazil with great anticipation. It was like a bucket of cold water to the face, followed by a hard slap. I left the theater somber, shocked and depressed.
I’ve been thinking of US v. Microsoft lately. In that trial, Microsoft engaged in a great deal of chicanery, fronting falsehoods, repeatedly in court, figuring they could fool a non-technical judge and opposition (that’s my opinion as to their motives).
What it succeeded in doing is irritate the judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, enough that he said something that allowed them to get his finding of law and judgement overturned on appeal and have the case handed over to another judge, who hit them with a tough consent decree, but didn’t split them up as Jackson had.
So, I would think judge baiting is a thing that Trump’s team might well have on the table.
Bad faith in that he has filed it not because he believes she should recuse or that he is likely to win, but because it is part of a PR / jury nullification strategy.
I was once in the place bmaz postulates: protecting the record by a motion to recuse. We took great pains to point out — repeatedly — that we WEREN’T alleging bias or prejudice. The issue was that the legislation at issue in the case had been passed during the time when the judge’s father had been speaker of the house of the pertinent state. His name was all over the legislative history. The motion was technical.
Nor did we care if we lost the motion. But what we didn’t want was the issue coming back on appeal if raised after trial. Which it could have been. The motion forced the other side to oppose, hence neutralized the issue for the rest of the case. Which enabled us to make the motion in a manner actually complimentary of the judge. But even that we did with hesitation. It was my first appearance before that judge, so you can imagine my trepidation.
As bmaz notes, this motion is to please the client and make a record of trying everything. That it helps the defendant’s political narrative and fund raising is an added benefit to the defendant. I suspect bmaz is also right that the motion will fail. No appellate court will bite during any appeal should he be convicted.
One difference between your situation and this thing (I would guess): your motion to recuse was not plastered as headlines on most major news sources in US. Not to mention the right wing radio that amplifies and cranks up the saturation and intensity.
Almost comically, I saw headline on The Hill this morning, giving Putin’s opinion on US justice system: Putin knocks prosecution of Trump, says US system is ‘rotten’.
From Chutkin’s remarks in the Palmer case, cited above:
It strikes me that these words fit Todd Blanche and especially Donald Trump remarkably well. Trump lives in a silo of his own making, and Blanche seems more than willing to sit at the entryway and defend it.
I have no, zero, zilch, background in criminal law. Allow me to prove it. My background is as a court attorney and referee in civil cases, but the circumstances of the Florida case baffle me. An attorney should not undertake a particular representation where his ability to do so is compromised; that’s pretty standard, isn’t it? As a general principle, an attorney should not accept representation when he has a conflict of interest. So, for example, we don’t allow one attorney to represent both sides in a contested divorce case, or two defendants in a P.I. case who have cross claims against each other. So how is it possible that Trump is paying the lawyers for his co-defendants, who might well benefit from cutting loose from the mother ship and blaming him for the whole thing? Arguably this arrangement could inhibit them from raising certain defenses that would disadvantage Trump and benefit their clients. How is this rationalized?
I know there is great expertise here, and I can’t be the only one of the non-experts here who finds this strange. Why is this permissible?
It helps to remember that when dealing with trump and his minions you are dealing with an organized crime family and not a list of individuals. There’s a hierarchy present here. Then throw in a healthy dose of cult mentality, a focus on the psychological campaign to tant the jury pool, bias from select judges, and a buttload of narcissism, and it all gets much clearer.
Here at Emptywheel the focus is more on the legal aspect of what’s happening, but to trump that is secondary to the psi-ops campaign he wages for more cult members. How much of that campaign stops at the door of the courtroom is what really matters.
I can’t speak to how this is rationalized. Its certainly in Trumps interest to have the same attorney representing both him and Walt Nauta.
The feds have asked for a Garcia hearing where Nauta will get to make an informed decision about conflict. Cannon appears to be delaying the case by delaying important hearings. I think thats her plan for tanking the case – let it go to trial in such a way that it’s easily overturned on appeal.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/aileen-cannon-mar-a-lago-slo
Short answer:
1-see comment 24, model rule 1.7
2-Woodward claims prosecution has not informed him of any evidence that his clients . . . are (unwaivably) “directly adverse” (Rules1.7 (a)(1));
3-. . . nor caused him to reasonably believe he cannot provide competent, diligent representation to each co-client. (1.7(b))
Longer answer: in the U.S. Criminal Justice system, demand for defense attorneys way exceeds supply, so, by custom, co-representation is common, and often a necessity. In the white collar (Trump) world, this might also be true, but most white collar attorneys cut their chops doing ‘regular’ defense or prosecution work, where co-client representation is common. Arguably, its common-ness basically ‘institutionalizes’ the practice.
This won’t improve until all prosecuting jurisdictions in America, fully fund, or first –establish and then fully fund — their public defenders offices.
Suppose we stipulated that the “remains free to this day” comment implied “and that’s unjust; Trump SHOULD be in prison for incitement.” Now, as you say, Judge Chutkan is not presiding over a an incitement trial. But is the law clear that that’s the end of the issue? That is, If a judge says that “John Doe should be in prison for fraud,” and John Doe is later charged with assault, is that judge expected to recuse herself from presiding over the assault trial?
If Chutkan believed she should recuse then she would have done so before the first hearing. If Trump believed she should recuse then he should have filed the motion at the outset. None of the statements which form the basis of the recusal motion are new or newly reported.
This is not a genuine recusal motion; it is a public relations motion.
Yes, very correct.
Framing that should guide the stories of every mainstream medium. Thanks.
A “tactical and cynical” bad faith motion is an understatement. Trump should not be the only one worried about sanctions. It seems designed to throw mud in the eyes of the press and public during a knife over reality and the fair administration of justice. Many reporters will be happy not to wipe the mud from their eyes as they scurry to report he said-she said clickbait.
Will this motion fail? Undoubtedly. Is it obfuscation about this case as you note? Definitely. But I can’t shake the grim view that it’s even worse. It feels like an attempted entrenchment of anti-institution and maybe even antigovernment sentiment among “the faithful” with a healthy dosage of implied white supremacism mixed in (yes, I’m aware Cannon identifies as Hispanic, but she has the “right name”, the “right father”, and most importantly, doesn’t have the “wrong skin”).
I’ve noted in other comments that so long as current polls are mostly accurate that compare Trump vs Republican party as a unit and even Trump vs individual Republicans, a call by him for abstention (or even forming his own party) would be a national level wipeout almost at Whig Party levels, temporarily but with the specter of long-term. And McCarthy, McConnell, and others clearly recognize this “hostage situation” as well. So as much as they hope that by being quiet and sending their extremist members on wild goose chases they can dodge the inevitable, no luck for them. If they were smart they would have had the seemingly-invulnerable McConnell aggressively push back with a pro-institutional frame a few months after the 2022 election that the more vulnerable McCarthy could join, giving them a year and half to fight it out with the Trump wing. There may yet be some time, but I’m not holding my breath, especially with the spotlight on McConnell’s recent public episodes. And as seen by crap like this motion, Trump isn’t stopping his approach anytime soon.
The smartest choice, and best for the long-term political fortunes of the Republican party, would have been for McConnell to whip sufficient votes for conviction after Trump was impeached the second time. Then they would’ve been rid of him forever. Sure, there might have been reduced Republican turnout in 2022. But news cycles and attention spans are short. And dumping Trump might have brought back ex-Republicans and independents who can’t stomach his particular vileness and incompetence but would otherwise be inclined to vote Republican. I’m skeptical that a significant number of Republican voters would actually stay home come election time, even if a Trump unable to run for president told them to do so. Rightwing media has demonstrated a capacity to work its viewers into an intense state of paranoia and fear every election year. The unique godless evil of [insert whichever Democratic candidate here] would continue to be a motivation, particularly in a presidential cycle.
That would have required McConnell to show overt leadership skills, as opposed to covert ones which are more his m.o.
Good point. Coincidentally, the Atlantic today posted an excerpt from McKay Coppins’s upcoming biography of Mitt Romney; it is loaded with anecdotes and quotations of other Republican senators including McConnell: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/mitt-romney-retiring-senate-trump-mcconnell/675306/. Romney’s fellow GOP senators, especially McConnell, come off as complete hypocrites and amoral political hacks. (No doubt Romney would tell the story in a way flattering to himself, but his portrayal of other Republicans lines up broadly with their public behavior and the frequent reporting of what they say in private.) Coppins writes: “Observing him in action, though, Romney realized that McConnell rarely resorted to threats or coercion—he was primarily a deft manager of egos who excelled at telling each of his colleagues what they wanted to hear.”
I don’t understand the suggestion that a defense lawyer should ever ask a judge for recusal when the judge is obviously biased in favor of the defendant. It seems to me that of all the reasons to call out the request for Chutkan’s recusal as a bad faith move, the defense’s delight over drawing Cannon in a different case ain’t one.
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The real reason is that, in federal court, you stand almost no chance of winning that request and will further piss off your judge.
Not a lawyer, but given everything else (and a lot of learning from this site) I think bmaz your comment over simplifies the matter
1) this motion strikes me as much as a preemptive tactic for the increasingly inevitable recusal process with Cannon given her handling g of [insert issue here – e.g. screwing over defendants]
2) it’s also seems like in this context, with this defendant, and this Supreme Court, and this Republican Party….pissing off the judge is a tactical risk to goad or build a future argument in the political sphere to disrupt the whole case.
Does not seem simplistic.
The method of the attack on Chutkan is not practice for and has no bearing on how defendant Trump might defend against DoJ accusations of bias against Cannon. It seems primarily intended as political fodder for the rubes, as you note, many of whom have had to plead guilty in the DC District.
The political utility that comes from attacking Chutkan seems obvious. Legally, the DC Circuit will not condone it, nor is this S.Ct. likely to do so, not without a much stronger factual and legal basis than Blanche and Lauro have offered here.
I hear you, I still think they are thinking about giving cover to keep cannon on the other case through this motion as well. “We’ll the i
Other judge didn’t recuse when called biased”. It’s still bad faith just a slightly different bad faith.
Tactically, I’m sure, you don’t want to piss off the judge…In normal cases. I think it may be irrelevant in this case. Judge Chutkan won’t let emotions get the better of herself.
What has become painfully clear is that minimize, deny and blame are powerful tools of deflection. A democracy that has lived a double life has created this situation. As a result we have used this technique or had it used on us. Oppression cannot exist without this manipulation.
We all know if that one kid in school who would conform to no rules based on minimize, deny and blame. Eventually the school expels the student.
The only way to change the trump narrative is power over. This a human being who is not grounded in truth, but power. And it’s working.
“A democracy that has lived a double life”
Just the phrase that I have been looking for for decades. My country, it’s of thee.
In addition to all the other hideous traits and heinous actions of these folks, perhaps the one that stands out most is their hypocricy. It really is a struggle to see these “people as other human beings,” though sadly, I guess they are. But something is really wrong with them.
Yes, something is wrong with them. Some people are like bonobos, some are like baboons. These are like baboons.
Reading the sentencing transcripts, Chutkan gives the impression of being a fair, disciplined, empathetic, experienced, and practical judge. The characterization Blanche and Lauro invented in their motion to recuse is just that: an invention. It’s another Trumpist attack on the judiciary and the criminal justice system for having the temerity to think the rule of law applies to him.
Indeed so.
The tight briefing schedule Chutkan has ordered for this issue suggests it will be swiftly disposed of.
I look forward to reading her decision on the matter in the very near future.
Have court filings ever been more fun for the layperson to read?
Also, she was not randomly injecting personal thoughts and opinions into the discussion. The defendants in the case raised Trump’s non-indictment as a reason why they should not be charged, or why they should get mercy. She was replying to this argument, properly so, and saying in essence, “I agree that those who planned things ought to be indicted, but that’s not my job, and that’s not the case before me today. You are the one on trial here, for the actions you took.” She HAD to address the issue raised by the defense, and chose to do so in a way that made clear that she understands what the defendants are saying but also understands that this (properly) has no bearing on the case under consideration.
It reminds me of what has happened to me several times during jury selection over the years, where the judge or one of the lawyers would see something on my juror questionnaire, ask questions about it, and then finish their questioning with something like “Regardless of what your previous thoughts and experiences might be, are you able to set them aside and make a judgment based on the facts that will be presented in the course of this trial?” I’m not talking about specific questions like “Are you friends with any parties or witnesses in this case?” but more general questions like “Have you ever been pulled over for a traffic stop?” if the case involves something that happened during a traffic stop.
Maybe Chutkan can make Blanche blanch. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
And so I ask you, “Where is your heart”?
“The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.” — Ben Franklin (who, as noted by Firesign Theater, was the only President of the United States who was never President of the United States).
OT, but what’s up with the NBC report where the official ‘former presidential office’ is in a location other than Mar – a – Lago without being searched? The reports showed clearly there are two storage locations in the M-a-L area but the GSA would only support one and Defendant-1 only selected the non-M-a-L one.
Very odd, and frankly the FBI just needs to look everywhere at once to stop the whack-a-mole games. Who knows what’s being sold now to prop up Defendant-1.
The FBI needs to look everywhere where it has probable cause to believe evidence of a crime might be located. The Fourth Amendment’s requirements should not be news to anyone here.
Mods. Paging Mods. Mea culpa, but after several hours, I had hoped you binned or revised the address in that comment. Thanks.
[Fixed. We do occasionally sleep, EoH. /~Rayne]
Mercy buckets.
You have probable cause for all those proposed searches, right?
The NBC report cites the GSA’s report, so in that case it is a valid predicate. Likewise there are reports better corroborated than Comer’s ‘whistleblowers’ that point to shenanigans at Bedminster with Defendant-1 waving classified docs around in unprotected settings.
Probable cause searches have been supported by much less and tested in the courts. It’s also an attempt to get to the scope of the problem. Defendant-1 has unauthorized access to classified / NDI materials, so any place he potentially stored them is fair game for a search.
This was a headline on 3 of the 5 web news places I peruse regularly. None were illuminating. EZ to see how someone not paying close attention or, as you aptly quote Chutkan (siloed, echo chamber etc) reads these things with a head full of FOX news, and is thinking how stacked things are against poor o’le Donald.
Pretty sure Lauro and Blanche enjoying rising admiration in MAGA world. Endless frivolous/baseless/factless maneuvers to delay/distract while hoping to knock someone off stride enough times they make a bigger mistake… then hang ’em. “This is how you do it”, I’d bet TFG says to more green-behind-the-ears lawyers he’s trying to train for his 2nd presidency.
Amazing what one can accomplish freed from the pesky shackles of honesty, ethics and truth.
What Trump is doing in the real world as this progresses is making irresponsibility, lying, and ignoring life’s challenges… mainstream. Can only lead to poverty.
This motion is a nonstarter. When you look at her comments in context, as any appellate court would do, there is no question about her fairness. She will only recuse if she wants out of the case for other reasons. But it will definitely be grist for the “give us money to fight this biased and corrupt judge” mill.
I disagree with the majority of the comments only on one point: I don’t think she’ll be pissed about the motion. She’ll probably just accept that in a case of this type, that the defense will file every motion conceivable, and do everything it can possibly do, to create issues for an appeal. In other words, Chutkan knows that’s how this case will go from beginning to end. I think it’s less likely that she’ll take it personally.
That is what criminal defense lawyers do in any case.
Well sure, but there are levels of this. In some cases, you get hit with motions that are serious and – even if they’re not ultimately granted – are plausible. In other cases, every possible motion, however ridiculous or farfetched, shows up in your inbox. There’s no discretion with the valor.
I’m talking about the latter scenario with Trump’s defense.
The funny thing is, the people who practice according to the former scenario are usually more effective. They don’t wear judges out with a bunch of garbage.
Yes. You have to be walking a thin line in any such situation.
There’s a difference, though, between filing a motion to preserve an issue for appeal, and filing a motion to appease your client so as to get them to sit down and shut up.
In this case, I think much of the world outside of MAGALand understands which kind of motion this is.
No, there really is no difference. Sometimes you do what you have to do
If it was the former, the motion would have been filed shortly after the case was assigned to Chutkan, not months later after the defense does not get what they want with a scheduling motion. The defense’s stated reason for asking for a recusal is because of what she said in earlier cases, not for anything she did with reference to this case.
There is a stink to this motion that has nothing to do with any potential appeal.
Refs are used to being worked by aggressive guys a foot taller than them.
Didn’t seem to bother Judge Sirica (look him up, quite the background for a historical figure)
Judge Chutkan has issued a minute order asking DOJ to respond to the recusal. It also says – “Defense counsel is reminded of the requirement to confer with opposing counsel before filing any motion and to indicate whether the motion is opposed (emphasis added).” – which suggests that they didn’t bother to do so. Looks like Judge Chutkan is already slightly pissed by Blanche & Lauro not following proper procedures.
Not so sure she’s pissed. I imagine she’s expecting all shorts of shit from these clowns. I take her reminder as a warning to them not to do ignore that requirement again, in much the same manner as she has warned Trump about his social media statements. A judge with good judicious temperament – and Chutkin certainly appears to be one – usually gives warnings or admonitions before sanctionis.
If criminal justice were poetic justice, Trump would have been assigned to and thus now be filing the bias-recusal motion against his appointee Tim Kelly, so that the MAGA rubes would have an inkling of how absurd it is. Alas….