Trump to face familiar judge in criminal case over 2020 election

[August 02, 2023]  By Andrew Goudsward

(Reuters) - The judge assigned to oversee the federal case against Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election has previously ruled against the former president and sharply condemned the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C. is set to preside over the wide-ranging case accusing Trump of attempting to interfere with the counting of votes and seeking to block Congress from certifying the election results.

Trump claimed the indictment unsealed on Tuesday was political persecution aimed at harming his bid to recapture the presidency in 2024.

Here are key facts about Chutkan’s background and rulings:

OBAMA APPOINTEE

Chutkan was nominated as a federal judge by President Barack Obama in 2013. She was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate the following year though she did face some Republican opposition in an earlier procedural vote.

She previously served as a public defender in Washington, D.C. representing indigent defendants in criminal cases. Chutkan later joined the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, where she defended clients in white-collar cases and represented plaintiffs in antitrust class action lawsuits.

While at Boies Schiller, Chutkan represented the failed blood testing startup Theranos in a lawsuit against one of the company’s former law firms. Theranos later became engulfed in scandal and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, was convicted of fraud.

RULED AGAINST TRUMP

The criminal case will not be Chutkan's first chance to rule on a matter involving Trump and the U.S. Capitol riot. Chutkan rejected a lawsuit brought by Trump in 2021 seeking to block the U.S. House committee investigating the attack from obtaining White House records, citing the legal doctrine of executive privilege.

Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on as he holds a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 29, 2023. REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario/File Photo

“Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling, which was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

OVERSAW JAN. 6 CASES

Chutkan has overseen several cases involving people accused of participating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. She is among judges in D.C. federal court who have spurned some recommendations from prosecutors for lesser punishments.

"There have to be consequences for participating in an attempted violent overthrow of the government, beyond sitting at home,” Chutkan told one defendant in 2021, rejecting the government’s recommendation of home detention.

JAMAICA BORN

Chutkan was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1962. She was the third Black woman to serve as a federal judge in the Washington, D.C. federal trial court when she was confirmed.

Chutkan graduated from George Washington University and later the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by David Bario and Michael Perry)

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