Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday lost a bid to have a federal judge remove herself from presiding over his criminal election interference case in Washington, D.C.

Judge Tanya Chutkan said in a court ruling that her recusal was “not warranted in this case.”

Trump’s lawyers had argued that Chutkan made “disqualifying” statements about him in separate cases involving two defendants charged over their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The defense attorneys claimed Chutkan’s statements showed prejudice against Trump, and that she believed he “should be prosecuted and imprisoned.”

The judge rejected that argument Wednesday, writing that “the court has never taken the position the defense ascribes to it.”

“Based on its review of the law, facts, and record, the court concludes that a reasonable observer would not doubt its ability to uphold” her judicial oath, Chutkan wrote in her 20-page opinion.

Trump is charged in a four-count indictment in U.S. District Court in Washington with conspiring to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

He has pleaded not guilty in the case being prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith, one of four pending criminal cases he faces.

The Jan. 6 riot by a violent mob of Trump’s supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol after he falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged is a central element of the prosecution’s case against him.

In asking Chutkan to recuse herself, Trump’s lawyers pointed to her remarks at sentencing hearings for two people, Christine Priola and Robert Palmer, convicted for conduct during the riot.

During Priola’s sentencing, Chutkan said, “The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.”

“It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day,” the judge said.

Trump’s lawyers wrote that that remark in Priola’s hearing sent an “inescapable” message: “President Trump is free, but should not be.”

When Palmer was sentenced, Chutkan told him, “Mr. Palmer — you have made a very good point, one that has been made before — that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged.”

Trump’s attorneys wrote that Chutkan’s comment to Palmer “reflect her apparent opinion” that Trump’s conduct “supports charges.”

But Chutkan, in her ruling denying the recusal motion, said that her statements “directly reflected facts proffered and arguments made by those defendants.”

“And the court specifically identified the intrajudicial sources that informed its statements,” she added.

Trump has slammed Chutkan as a “biased, Trump Hating Judge.”

Chutkan, who was appointed to the bench in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama, has imposed longer sentences than prosecutors requested in multiple Jan. 6 defendants’ cases.

Smith has asked Chutkan to impose a partial gag order that would limit what Trump can say about prospective witnesses, as well as court officials and other parties in the case.

Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday urged Chutkan not to impose those restrictions, claiming that they are an attempt to “unconstitutionally silence” the former president as he seeks the 2024 GOP nomination.