Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduced a resolution in Congress at the end of last week that would enact a censure of federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is handling proceedings in the latest criminal case brought against former President Donald Trump at the federal level. That case is the work of Special Counsel Jack Smith and concerns the former president’s efforts to stay in power after the 2020 presidential election despite losing to now President Joe Biden.
Gaetz’s resolution has zero cosponsors as of early on the Monday following his introduction in the House of the initiative. Though the number of cosponsors doesn’t have an established, mathematically direct relation to the likelihood something will eventually pass, there is ample precedent for proposals in their early stages receiving at least some level of formal support expressed through cosponsorship, but it seems indicated here that there is not an extensive interest among House Republicans in trying to target Chutkan.
Censure is effectively a formal rebuke that carries no inherent consequence for the continuance of a targeted official in their position, though Gaetz’s push also calls for an investigation into the judge by the House Judiciary Committee, where he’s a member.
Gaetz accuses the judge of political bias in her work, spotlighting in the text of the proposed resolution some of her handling of the Capitol riot cases that have come before her. He misrepresents the judge’s stance towards demonstrations seen around the United States in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by police, accusing the judge of having expressed support for violent demonstrations. The resolution itself cites Chutkan as having said that “to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency,” and the text of Gaetz’s initiative subsequently characterizes effectively the entirety of the earlier protests to which Chutkan referred as violent, which is false.
The resolution also conveniently ignores the documentation of violence at the Capitol on January 6. Defendants from that day have consistently received support from Gaetz and ideological allies of his.
