Meet Tanya Chutkan, The Distinguished Judge Overseeing Former President Trump’s Latest Indictment

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was “the toughest sentencing judge on the D.C. federal court for Jan. 6 defendants,” and former President Trump is next up on her docket (again).

During their first run in, “[s]he denied his 2021 motion to prevent records from being given to the January 6 committee.” “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not president,” wrote Chutkan in her decision.  

Chutkan’s next assignment: presiding “over the criminal case involving Donald Trump after a federal grand jury investigating the efforts of the former president and others to overturn the results of the 2020 election returned an indictment on Tuesday.”

Although she randomly drew this assignment, Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, is already being condemned.

On his podcast, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “We can anticipate a judge who is going to be relentlessly hostile to Donald Trump, who is going to bend over backwards for the Biden DOJ, and who is going to make ruling, after ruling, after ruling against Trump,” adding that she “has a reputation for being far left, even by D.C. District Court standards.”

But Chutkan is no stranger to disparagement. “For a lot of people, I seem to check a lot of boxes: immigrant, woman, Black, Asian. Your qualifications are always going to be subject to criticism and you have to develop a thick skin,” she recounted in a federal judiciary profile piece.

She stated that she draws strength from Judge Constance Baker Motley’s “dignity and brilliance,” as well as the women lawyers who preceded her. “They put their lives on the line every time they did their jobs and had to put up with far more than I have.”

A trained dancer, born in Kingston, Jamaica, Chutkan originally didn’t anticipate a career in law; but that all changed after she moved to Washington, D.C. to attend George Washington University. She then matriculated to the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and after graduating she began a distinguished and trailblazing legal career in both the private and public sectors.

Within the legal sphere, Chutkan is regarded as being “incredibly dedicated to justice…[and] her commitment to ensuring equal access to justice was evident.” Colleagues have hailed her as having “extensive experience in complex legal matters and criminal defense undoubtedly contributed to her well-rounded understanding of the law.”

Trump will not be having his first appearance in court on this indictment before Chutkan. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya will preside over Thursday’s hearing in Washington, D.C.

Spokespeople for Trump have not yet made any comments on this matter. But, John Lauro, his defense attorney “told CBS News that the former president’s legal team would ‘absolutely’ seek to move his trial out of overwhelmingly Democratic Washington and suggested Republican-leaning West Virginia as an alternative.”

New York University School of Law legal ethics professor Stephen Gillers doubts this request would be granted though, saying “I understand why Trump would like another judge, and I understand why Trump would like another venue,” continuing, “but nothing I’ve heard — including the fact that Judge Chutkan has sentenced harshly other January 6 defendants — would warrant a recusal.…Things such as what is said or done within the four corners of a case before her as a judge cannot be a basis for recusal because she’s doing her job. That’s what judges do.”