Clearly he didn’t think it mattered. Why it didn’t matter to him is speculation. If the judge recuses, who replaces him? Could it be that he felt he had the best option available already? Likewise, maybe he just didn’t care because it didn’t matter if he won. Think about all the unnecessary filings and testimony presented at trial. That is not the work of a dumbass…if you’re phoning it in, you aren’t going to put that much work into it. So it does appear that the main goal was to lock in testimony so they cant easily pivot.