Hillary Clinton indictment watch

**Ef-man** · 04-10-2022

Judge dismisses Trump's request for recusal from Hillary Clinton RICO lawsuit, says the cases cited in Trump's motion 'do not appear to support his arguments'

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected former President Donald Trump's request that he recuse himself from overseeing Trump's sweeping lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, people linked to her campaign, and former FBI and DOJ officials.

Trump's lawyers said in their motion for recusal that US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks should step aside because he was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Bill Clinton.

"Due to the fact that Judge Middlebrooks has a relationship to the Defendant, HILLARY CLINTON's husband, by way of his nomination as Judge to this Court, this amounts to prejudice so virulent or pervasive as to cons ute bias against a party," their filing said.

Middlebrooks in his Wednesday ruling acknowledged that Bill Clinton appointed him to the court. "Although former President Clinton is not a party to this lawsuit, I will give Plaintiff the benefit of the doubt and equate the interests of the Clintons for the sake of analysis here," the filing said.

Even so, the judge found that Trump's argument doesn't hold water, writing that "to warrant recusal, something more must be involved than solely my appointment to the bench twenty-five years ago by the spouse of a litigant now before me."

He also pointed out that the three cases that were cited in Trump's motion for recusal "compel no different conclusion, and indeed do not appear to support his arguments."

In an accompanying footnote, Middlebrooks said that in the first case, Hamm v. Members of Board of Regents of Florida, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals "held that a district court judge did not exhibit bias sufficient to warrant recusal based on certain statements he made at trial."

None of the cases cited "discussed whether judicial appointment by a party, without more, would cause a reasonable person to suspect bias on the part of the presiding judge," Middlebrooks wrote. And the ruling in one of them "emphasized that, to establish bias justifying disqualification, a party must demonstrate 'such pervasive bias and prejudice that it cons utes bias against a party' — a showing that certainly has not been made here."

In all, "the law is well settled" that merely being appointed to the bench by a litigant does not "create in reasonable minds ... a perception that [the judge's] ability to carry out judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality, and competence [would be] impaired," Middlebrooks concluded, quoting the judicial code of conduct.

https://www.businessinsider.com/fede...co-case-2022-4