High-octane partisan emotions from the 2024 election have the potential to inject some formal chaos into the Arizona criminal case against 11 “alternate” or fake electors and several lawyers linked to President-elect Donald Trump.
A motion to disqualify recently filed by one of the defendants takes aim at the judge overseeing the case for emails sent to other judges in which he strongly suggests they should defend Vice President Kamala Harris against race-and gender-based criticism.
In August, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen offered some choice words to his colleagues in response to perceived slights against the since-failed Democratic Party presidential candidate. The judge singled out other white and male jurists.
The emails were obtained and reported on by The Arizona Daily Independent late last week.
One such passage reads:
In another passage, Cohen likened the post-2024 election political milieu to that of Nazi totalitarianism.
“I have been reflecting on Martin Niemoller’s brilliant post-WWII essay known as ‘First they came for …’ While the subject matter of his commentary was one of the most horrific periods in world history, its instruction applies equally to present day events,” the judge wrote. “When we cannot or do not stand with others, the words of Martin Niemoller are no longer a historic reference to the atrocities of WWII, those words describe the present.”
Now, Arizona state Sen. Jake Hoffman says Cohen must remove himself from the high-profile case.
“Those statements compare Republicans to Nazis and urged members of the bench to defend Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President in last week’s election,” attorneys David Warrington and Michael Columbo wrote. “While Judge Cohen is entitled to his political opinions and speech, his rhetoric and exhortation precisely mirrors the evidence of hostile partisan political zealotry at the heart of the motions to dismiss that have been languishing before the Court for months.”
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To hear the defense tell it, Cohen’s missives are of a piece with statements made by a prosecutor who compared “Republicans to Nazis and the Defendants in this case to Vladimir Putin.”
The motion also contains a laundry list of offending words and phrases the judge allegedly used to describe Trump, his running mate JD Vance, and some of their political rhetoric.
Those words and phrases include:
In an email sent the day after the original email, Cohen apologized for using a mass judicial distribution list as his “forum.”
The defense credited that apology as genuine — but argued the judge had likely demonstrated an actual bias against Trump and his supporters and, in any event, an “appearance of partiality.”
“Judge Cohen bears a deep-seated personal political bias that overcame his professional judgment,” the motion to disqualify goes on, “[H]e was willing to use the privileges of his office to oppose his perceived political adversaries, which would naturally include the Defendants.”
The “utter contempt” evidenced by the court for the 45th and 47th president was particularly troubling because Hoffman “is on trial for exercising his First Amendment rights as a supporter of President Trump” and therefore he “cannot receive a fair trial,” the defense argues.
“President Trump is not just a political figure whom Senator Hoffman supports,” the motion to disqualify goes on. “He is designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Indictment. Even if Judge Cohen can somehow separate his apparent detestation of President Trump from his adjudication of a case that centers around Defendants’ political activity in support of President Trump, the appearance of impropriety is a stain on this case that cannot be removed.”
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Hoffman’s filing accuses Cohen of violating two cannons of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct: one that prohibits judges from engaging in bias or prejudice generally and one that specifically counsels against manifesting political affiliation-based biases.
“Judge Cohen must appreciate that under these circumstances he has left Senator Hoffman with no choice but to request that he be disqualified,” the motion reads. “A judge must recuse himself or herself when the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to when the judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party. Based on the information cataloged above, Judge Cohen’s impartiality can readily be questioned because of his apparent personal prejudice against President Trump and his supporters.”
The motion asks for the trial to be paused and for a series of deadlines later this month to be wiped out — pending resolution of the defense request — and for an immediate hearing.
Hoffman and 17 other co-defendants were named in a six-count indictment handed up by grand jurors in late April.
Prosecutors allege multiple felonies were committed in service of a failed effort — by many of Trump’s closest allies, advisers and stalwarts — to submit a slate of fake, or “alternate,” electors who were prepared to deny President Joe Biden the Electoral College votes he won in the state during the 2020 election. Similar efforts took place in multiple states where Trump lost in 2020 by solid but narrow margins.
The Grand Canyon State’s criminal case was one of multiple attempts by Democratic Party prosecutors to use the law against people within Trump’s orbit over election subversion efforts.
Many such cases — particularly those involving Trump himself — have since fallen by the wayside.
Cohen’s comments now stand the potential of delaying one of the last remaining election subversion prosecutions in the country.
A hearing on the motion to disqualify is slated to be held on Wednesday.
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