Judge’s integrity may give fake electors a free pass

Arizona’s indicted fake electors aren’t scheduled to go to trial until January of 2026.
Now, it may be later, which raises the possibility that a trial may not ever take place, and the defendants will simply walk.
All because Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen did the right thing and recused himself from the case.
Some months back, Judge Cohen was disgusted when Donald Trump posted online an ugly comment that suggested Vice President Kamala Harris had traded sexual favors to advance her career.
It isn’t the nastiest thing Trump has ever said about someone, but it got to Cohen, who wrote an email that went to other judges condemning the post and saying, “it is time for me to state my piece or be complicit in the depravity.”
Cohen later apologized to his associates, saying it wasn’t the proper use of the forum.
But Cohen was overseeing the criminal case against the fake electors, and it opened the door for one of their attorneys to accuse him of bias and say he should recuse himself.
Cohen said his comments didn’t represent bias but a “cry for decency and respect.”
Still, he decided to recuse himself.
He did the right thing, even though not recusing himself would not necessarily have been the wrong thing. He did so because an honorable judge understands the importance of maintaining a higher standard of integrity.
Or, as Cohen put it, “Out of a commitment to justice, even the appearance of bias cannot be allowed to undermine the fundamental fairness that is extended by the court to all who come before it. It is for that reason alone that this court is recusing itself from all further proceedings in this matter.”
Attorney General Kris Mayes says she still is going forward with the fake electors case, as she should.
Already, one defendant has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, and another took a plea deal.
Still, Mayes knows that any delay, any hiccup, any alteration to the process could further delay things until the case dies on the vine.
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One of the fake electors’ attorneys, Timothy La Sota, called Cohen’s comments evidence of “partisan political zealotry.”
Weird, isn’t it?
MAGA attorneys never made such complaints when Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito refused to recuse themselves from a case connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
A case that bolstered immunity protection for Donald Trump.
The justices did not recuse themselves even though Thomas’ wife, Ginni, was deeply involved in trying to overturn that election’s results.
And even though Alito’s home in Virginia flew an upside-down American flag, and his vacation home in New Jersey flew an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, both linked to supporters of Trump.
Justices Thomas and Alito, like Cohen, may genuinely have believed they were not biased in their cases.
But there is no doubt that all three of these accomplished legal jurists recognized that there was an “appearance of bias.”
One of them had integrity.
Reach Montini at [email protected].
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