Former President Donald Trump will face a federal judge in his alleged election subversion case who has a noted history of giving some of the lengthiest sentences to defendants involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The case will be overseen by Judge Tanya Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who has presided over several cases involving the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and is known to hand down sentences longer than what was recommended by prosecutors who brought the charges.
Out of a series of 11 riot-related cases Chutkan presided over, she imposed tougher sentences than those sought by federal prosecutors in seven instances and matched Department of Justice requests four times. All defendants wound up behind bars, according to an Associated Press review of sentences handed out to rioters.
For example, during a sentencing hearing in October 2021 for Texas resident Matt Mazzocco, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for unauthorized entry into the Capitol building, the judge described the recommended sentence as too lenient.
“If Mr. Mazzocco walks away with probation and a slap on the wrist, that’s not going to deter anyone trying what he did again,” Chutkan said. “It does not, in this Court’s opinion, indicate the severity — the gravity of the offenses that he committed on Jan. 6.” Ultimately, the judge sentenced Mazzocco to 45 days in jail with an additional 60 hours of community service.
The judge has handed down two of the longest sentences imposed thus far on any Jan. 6 defendants. Last year, she gave Mike Ponder, who assaulted police officers at the Capitol, 63 months in federal prison, which tied the length of a sentence given to Robert Palmer, who was sentenced in December 2021.
Chutkan was also notable in the role she played during the House Jan. 6 investigation, rejecting the former president’s efforts to block White House records from being given to Congress.
In rejecting his request, she wrote a memorable line from her ruling that “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”
The judge has also written about how prison can be a powerful tool to diffuse potential threats of another riot on federal grounds.
“It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment,” she wrote in one Capitol riot defendant’s case.
Chutkan also appeared to criticize one of her fellow Trump-appointed jurists without naming him. In a 2021 hearing, Judge Trevor McFadden suggested the DOJ was going too hard on some Jan. 6 defendants compared to people who rioted following the death of George Floyd in 2020.
“People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man. Some of those protesters became violent,” Chutkan said during an October 2021 hearing. “But to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.”
Trump has been summoned to appear in court before Chutkan on Thursday at 4 p.m. EDT in Washington, D.C., for his most recent indictment. He is facing four federal charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights, according to the indictment handed up Tuesday by a federal grand jury.
Prosecutors say the alleged scheme included enlisting a slate of “fake electors” targeting several states, using the DOJ to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” enlisting the vice president to “alter the election results,” and doubling down on false claims during the riot in an effort to subvert the election and remain in power. If convicted on all four counts, the former president could see up to 50 years in prison for a conviction in this case alone.
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The former president’s 2024 campaign blasted the indictment, comparing the latest charges to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and alleging the Department of Justice has been “weaponized.”
Trump is widely expected to be indicted by a grand jury in Georgia later this month over different charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
