The judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s trial on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election denied on Wednesday his attempt to disqualify her from the case for supposedly being biased against him.
In a strongly worded order, the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan of Federal District Court in Washington, rejected claims by Mr. Trump’s lawyers that she had shown bias against the former president in statements she made from the bench in two cases related to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021.
In the order, Judge Chutkan not only chided Mr. Trump’s lawyers for putting words in her mouth, but she also asserted that the remarks did not betray any animus or unfairness toward Mr. Trump that would warrant the extraordinary step of removing her from the election interference case.
“The statements certainly do not manifest a deep-seated prejudice that would make fair judgment impossible,” she wrote.