Who is Tanya Chutkan? New Judge Assigned for Donald Trump Jan 6 Case

Former U.S. President Donald Trump will have to appear in person in federal court in Washington on Thursday for his arraignment on allegations of conspiring to tamper with the results of the 2020 presidential election. He has been charged with four charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.

A new judge has been appointed to preside over Trump’s criminal case in Washington, DC, Tanya Chutkan. Chutkan is a District of Columbia United States District Judge. She has been serving as a federal judge since former President Barack Obama selected her in 2014, with a 95-0 majority approval by the Senate.

Trump drew the short straw this time. Kismet.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan was previously labelled as the 'toughest punisher' of January rioters. pic.twitter.com/U3txwGSv6J

— Molly Ploofkins™ (@Mollyploofkins) August 2, 2023

Meet Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee and the woman who will oversee the newest Trump indictment. She is absolutely the worst case scenario for Trump.

She spent 12 years at the law firm Boies Schiller where Hunter Biden was also employed. She has been very tough on… pic.twitter.com/pPlf5QnAS8

— 🇺🇸Travis🇺🇸 (@Travis_in_Flint) August 2, 2023

She was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to the US. She graduated from George Washington University with a bachelor's degree in economics and the University of Pennsylvania Law School with a law degree. She worked in private practice for three years after graduation before joining the District of Columbia Public Defender Service ("PDS") as a trial attorney and supervisor.  She argued multiple appellate cases and tried over 30 cases at PDS, including numerous major criminal situations.  She left PDS after 11 years to work for Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, where she specialised in litigation and white-collar criminal defence.  

Chutkan clerked for Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court. 

Tanya Chutkan is no stranger to dealing with federal cases regarding Jan 6, when Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol following his defeat in the Presidential election. She has been provided one of the harshest sentences to the Jan 6 rioters. At multiple sentencing hearings, she has been vocal about the riot, calling it an assault on American democracy and warning of future dangers from political violence.

She even rejected Trump's attempts in November 2021 to prevent the House select committee investigating January 6 from seeing more than 700 pages of information from his White House.  Chutkan has also rejected comparisons between the January 6 attack and the 2020 protests against racial inequality. She said that the two events are not comparable because the January 6 attack was an attempt to overthrow the government, while the 2020 protests were largely peaceful demands for civil rights, following the murder of George Floyd, an African-American, who was killed by the police because of racial prejudice.

Donald Trump has a history of fiercely criticising and challenging the credibility of prosecutors and judges engaged in his criminal matters. On the other hand, federal judge Tanya Chutkan has always been a strong voice in condemning abuse of power and in upholding the rule of law.

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