Partisan calls for recusal of judges resound as politics take over courtrooms

Calls for federal judges to recuse themselves from high-profile lawsuits have increased from the left and the right, and legal experts point to politics as the catalyst.

With Republican accusations of bias in former President Donald Trump’s trials and Democratic allegations of ethics violations by Supreme Court justices, the judicial system has become rife with calls for recusal, court watchers say.

“The courts, in many ways, have become a battleground for politics that produces the kind of ‘anything goes’ sort of argument,” said Elliot Mincberg, senior fellow at the liberal People For the American Way.

“If you just listen to the public debate, there is a lot more discussion of this judge or that judge should recuse,” said Curt Levey, president of the conservative Committee for Justice.

Pro-Trump conservatives and Republicans have called for the recusal of New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan from Mr. Trump’s hush money trial and of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan from his federal election interference case.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys twice tried to persuade Judge Merchan to recuse himself before the trial in Manhattan. They argued that his daughter works for a Democratic-aligned marketing firm that profits from targeting and criticizing the former president.

His attorneys said the daughter’s firm “actively marketed its services using connections to President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris, as well as graphics and other content that derided President Trump.” They suggested that a member of Judge Merchan’s family would profit from the prosecution of Mr. Trump.

Judge Merchan said the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics insisted that his impartiality was not in question.

“The court will not address this matter further,” Judge Merchan said before convening the trial.

The Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over $130,000 his former attorney Michael Cohen had paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. The former president, who has denied Ms. Daniels’ claim, is to be sentenced next month.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys also have tried to remove Judge Chutkan from the election interference case in the District of Columbia. They argued that she was critical of Mr. Trump while presiding over the trials of defendants accused of rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,” they wrote in the 2023 filing.

The attorneys pointed to what the judge said in one Jan. 6 trial: “This was nothing less than an attempt to violently overthrow the government, the legally, lawfully, peacefully elected government by individuals who were mad that their guy lost. I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats they were wearing and the garb. And the 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.”

Mr. Trump’s attorneys also noted that Judge Chutkan told one Jan. 6 defendant that he made a good point saying the “people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged.”

“I have my opinions, but they are not relevant,” Judge Chutkan said at the time.

The Obama appointee denied Mr. Trump’s request to recuse, reasoning that recusal is warranted only in rare circumstances.

“Justice also demands that judges not recuse without cause,” Judge Chutkan wrote. “Motions for recusal could also be wrongfully deployed as a form of ‘judge shopping.’”

The election interference case is on hold while the Supreme Court decides whether the former president is immune from criminal charges for actions he committed in office. A ruling is expected by the end of the month.

Mr. Mincberg dismissed any argument that Judge Chutkan should not oversee Mr. Trump’s D.C. trial.

“The notion that there is a credible reason to recuse Judge Chutkan is almost laughable,” he said. “His supporters will do anything.”

Mr. Levey said the increasing calls to remove judges overseeing Mr. Trump’s numerous prosecutions stem from Democrats’ attempts to usurp the justice system for electoral gains.

“I think all these cases against Trump — and then all the criminal cases and the Letitia James civil case — they have made the word ‘lawfare’ a household word,” he said.

Meanwhile, Democrats and liberal activists have repeatedly called for the recusal of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who is overseeing the former president’s classified documents case in Florida.

Newsweek reported in May that at least six petitions are circulating online to remove Judge Cannon.

Critics accuse Judge Cannon of intentionally slow-walking Mr. Trump’s case ahead of the November election and delaying a trial date.

Democratic lawmakers have also repeatedly called for Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. to recuse themselves from election-related cases stemming from the Jan. 6 riot.

They note that Justice Thomas’ wife, Virginia Thomas, attended Mr. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021. She has said she left the rally before it turned into a riot at the Capitol.

Justice Thomas has also been targeted in a series of articles about his undocumented luxury trips financed by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.

Justice Thomas and Mr. Crow have defended their friendship and said they have done nothing wrong.

Democrats have targeted Justice Alito over an upside-down American flag flying at his house in Virginia and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his New Jersey vacation home.

They say both symbols support the “Stop the Steal” movement and that he should not weigh in on cases involving Mr. Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution in his D.C. election fraud case or charges against Jan. 6 defendants. One pending case deals with a federal obstruction charge against roughly 300 Jan. 6 rioters.

“I think there’s a crisis on the court,” said Sen. Christopher Murphy, Connecticut Democrat. “In particular with respect to Justice Alito and Justice Thomas. What Justice Thomas is engaged in is just a grift. He’s got a major political player on the outside who absolutely has political and business interests at the court paying off a justice.

“Justice Alito is openly displaying affiliation with political causes in public,” Mr. Murphy said Sunday during an appearance on CNN.

Mr. Mincberg said Mr. Trump’s and his supporters’ calls for the recusal of judges pale in comparison with the reasons supporting the recusals of Justices Thomas and  Alito and Judge Cannon.

“I personally don’t think they are really comparable,” he said of the two sides. “The arguments made by Trump for recusal of Merchan, for example, or the other arguments made by the right seem a lot more flimsy than the arguments made for Alito, Thomas and Cannon.”

Mr. Levey said many of the calls are “theatrics” and Democrats’ repeated attacks on the high court have led to an “erosion in the confidence of the rule of law.”

“I think cynicism about the judiciary is way up, and I think that leads both to an increase in people calling for recusal … and I think it also sort of makes those calls resound more,” Mr. Levey said.