Conservatives bash judge in Trump’s indictment, call for her recusal

Written by Jack Wheatley

Research contributions from Jacina Hollins-Borges

Published

Right-wing media are attacking Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over Donald Trump’s pending criminal case in Washington D.C.

Chutkan was randomly selected to preside over the case. Appointed by former President Obama, she has been described as a “tough Jan. 6 sentencer” of defendants who participated in the insurrection, though she has “avoided some of the most pointed criticisms of Trump that some of her colleagues on the federal bench in D.C. have delivered.” 

Media figures on the right have leveled numerous attacks and charges against her, describing her as politically motivated, and calling for her recusal in the case against the former president. 

 

  • Fox News host Mark Levin described Chutkan as “the worst, radical, left-wing, Obama judge in America” on Fox and Friends, adding that Trump would be indicted for “drinking too much orange juice.”
  • On his radio show, Levin reiterated his claim and called Chutkan “a whack job.” He then asked, “Do you think Trump will get a fair shot with her? Of course not.” He added, “And so the system is really truly rigged. Really truly rigged.” 
  • On WABC’s Chat with the Mayor, alleged co-conspirator Rudy Giuliani called her “the most inhumane sentencer on the court for January 6 people.” He went on to claim, “This is the Soviet Union, Red China, or Nazi Germany. That judge should recuse herself if she has any ethics.” 
  • Newsmax host Greg Kelly called Chutkan “a bad judge” for Trump’s case and said, “She has major conflicts.” 
  • The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro called Chutkan “a very left-wing judge” and said, “It is certainly fair to point out that Jack Smith is filing in a court in Washington D.C. with probably the most Trump-hating judge in Washington D.C.”  
  • Newsmax host Eric Bolling called Judge Chutkan “a very harsh judge on anything surrounding January 6.” 
  • On her SiriusXM show, Megyn Kelly predicted, “This judge is going to hate Trump, and she's not going to dismiss this case on the papers.”
  • Newsmax host Sebastian Gorka said, “This is their attempt to steal 2024,” and called Chutkan “the worst January 6 judge possible — an Obama appointee who has given the harshest sentences to people who walked through the velvet ropes on January 6.” 
  • Laura Ingraham said she has “doubts about her” and said, “I want to remind you tonight that she worked for Hunter Biden's law firm at one point, Boies and Schiller.” 
  • On Fox Business, Alan Dershowitz and Kash Patel called for Chutkan to recuse herself from Trump’s case, with Derschowitz calling her former law firm “one of the most corrupt firms” and accusing them of being “Democratic hacks.”  
  • Dershowitz also appeared on BlazeTV’s The Glenn Beck Program and asserted that Chutkan “has a very questionable background” and “worked for years for a firm that’s highly questionable.” 
  • On Steve Bannon’s War Room, Patel again called for Chutkan’s recusal, saying, “She’s so entrenched through her past legal representations and family to the Democratic national party and the Hillary Clinton campaign that she could not be a fair, detached … arbiter of facts.”  
  • On Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime, an over-the-shoulder graphic featured an image of Chutkan with the words, “the Obama Punisher,” and host Jesse Watters described her as “an Obama donor.”    
  • Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson called Chutkan “a very nasty judge” and added, “This judge worked with Hunter Biden at a law firm. This judge should be recused, of course.” 
  • On Newsmax, co-host Bianca de la Garza pointed to the ties between Chutkan’s law firm and the president’s son, saying, “The person who runs it is a huge donor to the Democratic party.” She predicted that Trump’s team would request a different judge to preside over the case.
  • On Newsmax’s special coverage of the indictment, Newsmax contributor Joe diGenova said Chutkan will be “very, very bad for Donald Trump” and suggested there’s a risk “that she will not conduct a proper jury selection process” in Trump’s case. 
  • On his radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity said, “The Obama-appointed judge overseeing this case once worked for the same law firm as Hunter Biden. Is anybody going to call that a conflict of any kind? I’d say that might be a conflict.”