An attorney and legal spokeswoman for former President Donald Trump said that just because he’s been charged in Democrat-heavy Washington, D.C., doesn’t mean the outcome of his case is a foregone conclusion.
Alina Habba spoke to Newsmax TV Wednesday evening ahead of a Thursday court appearance by Trump in the nation’s capital Thursday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who has a reputation for handing down harsher-than-usual punishments to Jan. 6 protesters who have appeared in her courtroom.
Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump earlier this week with four felonies linked to alleged actions on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the U.S. Capitol riot.
Host Rob Schmitt first played a clip featuring former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova, who predicted that the combination of Chutkan, a Democrat-dominant jury pool, and Trump’s political affiliation as a Republican would ensure he is convicted.
“I don’t necessarily believe that, and maybe that’s only because I’m a product of a little bit more internal knowledge,” Habba told Schmitt. “I’m not as concerned based on the facts [of the case]. Am I concerned about a D.C. jury? Of course, nobody can get in front of a D.C. jury as a Republican.”
“There are processes that we can go through if we do believe that this judge is compromised or won’t be able to give a fair shake,” Habba said. “It’s a motion for recusal.
“The only issue with recusal motions — and I’m not familiar with the criminal court system — but in civil law, the judge decides whether they can be impartial … so, we’ll see how it works. I’ll leave that to our criminal attorneys, but that’s typically what you do,” she said.
“I can’t see how you could possibly be a person who donates to the Democratic Party, a person who sat on the board with the [son of the] current president and political opponent to President Trump … and then sit and oversee this case,” Habba added. “That just doesn’t make sense to me.”
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The outlet noted that last year, a fawning profile of Chutkan by The Associated Press noted: “Chutkan has handed out tougher sentences than the [Justice Department] was seeking in seven cases, matched its requests in four others and sent all 11 riot defendants who have come before her behind bars.”
The story, which ran under the headline, “In Jan. 6 cases, 1 judge stands out as the toughest punisher,” added: “In the four cases in which prosecutors did not seek jail time, Chutkan gave terms ranging from 14 days to 45 days.”
Though prosecutors were not seeking it, Chutkan also jailed “an Ohio couple who climbed through a broken window of the U.S. Capitol.”
Others prosecuted for actions taken during the riot include a “Texas mortgage broker [who] posed for a selfie in front of rioters breaching the building [and an] Indiana hair salon owner celebrated on Facebook a day after she joined the pro-Donald Trump mob,” the AP noted further.
The Daily Mail added:
Chutkan worked at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner from 2002 until she was confirmed a federal judge in 2014. Boies Schiller has strong connections to the Democratic Party and then-second son Hunter Biden — whose dad President Biden is likely to face Trump in the 2024 election — was of counsel at the firm from 2009 to 2014. It is not known if the two ever had any interaction while working there.
According to the outlet, the new charges against Trump bring a maximum of 55 years in prison, which would effectively be a life sentence for the 76-year-old former president.
