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Trump asks Judge Beryl Howell to disqualify herself in Perkins Coie case [1]

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Date: 2025-03-21

The Trump Administration has filed a nine page request (PDF) to Judge Beryl Howell to disqualify herself from the Perkins Coie v. Dept. of Justice, et al. case.

Chutzpah doesn't even cover it.

Judge Howell had already ruled that 3 of the 5 sections of Donald Trump's executive order attacking them were stayed. Perkins Coie, represented by Williams & Connolly, hadn't asked to stay the order's anti-DEI requirement or the revocation of security clearances.

In the DOJ filing: "...the need to curtail ongoing improper encroachments of President Trump's Executive Power playing out across the country."

They couldn't possibly have a free and fair proceeding with this sort of stuff going on.

"In this case, reasonable observers may well view this court as insufficiently impartial to adjudicate the meritless challenges to President Trump's efforts to implement the agenda that the American people have elected him to carry out."

Here we go again. Same old, same old. Because Trump won the election, everything is justified, even when it's patently illegal.

"Examples (of animus to the President) include this court enabling the improper efforts of disgraced former prosecutor Jack Smith despite a readily apparent lack of venue in this District; wrongly suggesting in public that President Trump is an authoritarian...including gratuitous and biased references by this Court regarding the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller confirm that reasonable observers may view this court as incapable of adjudicating these claims against the Commander in Chief."

As far as I can remember, it's always proper to talk about a criminal's past history. Those are both criminal cases. The fact that the fallout from the Mueller report didn't get Trump prosecuted for collusion with the Russians, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Same thing with Jack Smith trying the January 6th case. That one isn't even a question. Everyone knows Trump committed treason. So these snide remarks are not going to garner the Department of Justice lawyers any favors from the judge. The reason she's there is because Trump has acted illegally again.

What the Department of Justice said about here was that in 2019, Judge Howell ruled that the House of Representatives had the right to view the secret grand jury proceedings that had been redacted from the Mueller report.

Last month she ruled that the FBI had to disclose information that they had from investigating Trump in the classified documents case, because of a Freedom of Information Act suit filed by Bloomberg. She cited the Supreme Court immunity decision as being a reason why there was no reason to withhold the records now, as nothing could be charged against the President.

Now you've got the background as to why Trump's DOJ thinks the judge is biased.

They are trying to use the standard of when a judge's impartiality may be reasonably questioned as the reason for recusal.

"Discussion" goes into remarks she made in 2023 where she used the word "crossroads" in talking about where the country was. This caused Elise Stefanik to file a complaint. Boohoo. They call the remarks about President Trump and his supporters in 2020 as grandstanding. And when she described January 6th as a national injustice, that also disqualifies her.

Supposedly, she has a pattern of hostility towards President Trump. She did rule that the crime fraud exception was in order for Trump's lawyer to testify about the retention of classified documents. I have completely forgotten that a DC grand jury was involved. I thought it was just Judge Eileen's Cannon in Florida.

She held Twitter in contempt for withholding Donald Trump's direct messages. At that point, Musk had already bought Twitter and was ruining it.

The worst crime was that she acted within 24 hours of Perkins Coie filing a request for a temporary restraining order. They bring up the Steele Dossier, saying that it's completely discredited, but without actually naming it, just mentioning Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Christopher Steele. One problem, it hasn't been discredited, it just hasn't been confirmed, because the memos were never followed through being investigated.

The funny thing, is instead of actually signing the document by Richard Lawson, the Deputy Associate Attorney General, in front of his printed name is "/s/" which is one too many slashes for being sarcastic, but it made me laugh.

Then they give her the short form so she can sign it and kick herself off the case. That, of course, is not going to happen.

Up until now, the last word heard about the case was that all parties concerned would be meeting in her courtroom last Friday the 14th, to set a schedule for proceedings. I can't find any results from that hearing.

This move by the Department of Justice could have easily been foreseen. They're trying to do the same thing with Judge Boasberg at the moment.

It's just not going to work. Both judges have exemplary records.

What I don't know is if the judge doesn't sign the recusal, does she need to respond with her own reply? I hope she does, it'll be a good read.

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