From The New York Times, "Judge in Trump Jan. 6 Trial Is Known for Tough Capitol Riot Sentences": When former President Donald J. Trump appears in court before Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on charges of conspiring to subvert American democracy, it will not be the first time she has dealt with high-profile questions related to Mr. Trump's attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. Nearly two years ago, Judge Chutkan rejected Mr. Trump's efforts to prevent his White House records from being given to the House committee investigating his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters — delivering a swift and sharp rebuke about the limits of his ability as former president to invoke executive privilege. "Presidents are not kings," she wrote, "and plaintiff is not president."*Cue sassy finger snapping.* [...] Judge Chutkan was appointed by President Barack Obama and, before joining the bench, donated money to his campaigns. [...] [...] Judge Chutkan ruled against Mr. Trump in the dispute over White House papers with the Jan. 6 committee [...] Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Judge Chutkan came to the United States to attend college at George Washington University and obtained her law degree at the University of Pennsylvania. She spent more than a decade serving as a court-appointed lawyer for indigent clients and worked for a time at the white-shoe law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner before joining the federal bench in Washington in 2014. She is married to Peter A. Krauthamer, a former associate judge of the Superior Court in the District of Columbia, which handles local criminal trials. [...] In 2017, she ruled that an American citizen being held in military detention in Iraq as a suspected member of ISIS had a right to a lawyer, over the Trump administration's objections. She also blocked the administration from preventing undocumented, pregnant teenagers from having access to abortion-related services. And in 2019, she issued an injunction halting the Trump administration's plan to resume the death penalty, blocking executions of four federal convicts. But her involvement in cases related to Jan. 6 is likely to attract the most attention as she takes up what seems destined to be one of the most significant criminal trials in American history. She handled both a lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump seeking to block his White House records from being handed over to the House Jan. 6 committee and several criminal cases brought against rioters in the Capitol attack. Over the past two years, Judge Chutkan has earned a reputation for handing down tough penalties to people convicted of crimes in the Jan. 6 riot. [...] The events of Jan. 6 were "an attempt of a violent mob to prevent the orderly and peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next" and their efforts "soiled and defaced the halls of the Capitol," she said in October 2021 in delivering a harsher sentence to a rioter than what prosecutors had requested. "The country is watching to see what the consequences are," she declared, adding, "There have to be consequences."The New York Times is floating racial revenge as a motive for Chutkan to have Trump crucified: As a matter of political reality, it may also prove significant that Judge Chutkan is Black, an immigrant and a woman. Mr. Trump has a history of attacking judges and prosecutors — especially those who are women, members of minority groups or both — in personal terms. In 2016, Mr. Trump denounced Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was overseeing a fraud case against Trump University, calling him a "Mexican." He accused the judge of bias because he wanted to... |
