Tipsheet

Meet the Judge Overseeing Trump’s January 6 Case

Mia Cathell
Mia Cathell  |  August 02, 2023 1:00 PM

Obama-appointed Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was assigned Tuesday to preside over Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal "election interference" case against thrice-indicted 2024 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, pumped thousands of dollars into Barack Obama's presidential campaign coffers, unearthed Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign-finance records reveal.

Known as the "toughest punisher" of J6 defendants, the nine-time Obama donor overseeing Trump's Jan. 6 case donated a total of $4,300 to the former Democrat president, the FEC filings show. Chutkan—appointed by Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2014—made a majority of the donations to Obama's presidential campaign committee (Obama for America) ahead of the 2008 election, when then-Sen. Joe Biden was vying for the vice presidency on the Obama-Biden ticket. 

Then, in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential race, Chutkan donated twice to the Obama Victory Fund, earmarking $1,000 for each campaign contribution, which went toward boosting Obama in the general election that year, the FEC listings report.

Chutkan's 2008 and 2012 campaign contributions | FEC filings

At the time, prior to the presidential appointment, Chutkan was an attorney for Boies, Schiller, & Flexner LLP, where Biden's troubled son Hunter once worked as legal counsel, a "no-show" job that didn't require he attend meetings or maintain regular in-person office hours, yet he earned $216,000 yearly, according to an investigative report published by the New York Post. (The federal judge's ex-employer is confirmed in the FEC disclosures.) Emails from the First Son's incriminating "laptop from hell" show that the Hunter Biden-linked law firm, which has been accused of behind-the-scenes influence peddling, dodged lobbying disclosures to Congress divulging its work with Ukrainian energy giant Burisma Holdings, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

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Chutkan has repeatedly handed Capitol rioters some of the most severe, harsher-than-recommended incarceration sentences as opposed to what U.S. Justice Department prosecutors sought in several cases, arguing at one of the hearings, "there have to be consequences...beyond sitting at home," even for J6 defendants who weren't violent. According to AP, the unbending Chutkan has "consistently taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge serving on Washington's federal trial court."

Out of 38 defendants convicted of Capitol riot-related crimes who were sentenced in her courtroom, all of them received jail time from Chutkan, per an AP analysis of court records, which found she matched or exceeded the prosecution's recommendations in 19 of the 38 sentences. Between October and December 2021, Chutkan upped the jail sentences for six J6ers who pleaded guilty to unlawful parading and picketing inside the Capitol building, a non-violent misdemeanor offense (via Reuters):

  • Slapped a pair of cousins (Robert L. Bauer and Edward E. Hemenway) who took selfies inside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 with a 45-day jail sentence, more than two weeks longer than the 30 days requested by the federal prosecution.
  • Sentenced a Capitol rioter to two weeks in jail plus 60 hours of community service, even though prosecutors had suggested probation, citing 52-year-old hairdresser Dona Sue Bissey's early acceptance of responsibility and cooperation with law enforcement. Bissey's defense attorney said his client, a self-described "God-fearing, country-loving, law-abiding, hardworking patriot" who is "not and [has] never...been a violent individual," found comfort during the government-mandated COVID-19 lockdowns in a "steady diet of cable news and Facebook-scrolling" to distract herself from financial worries.
  • Beefed up the punishment of J6 defendant Matthew C. Mazzocco, who admitted to the misdemeanor charge, to 45 days in jail, marking the first time one of the judges tasked with handling the hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions imposed a sentence that was in excess of the government's request. Instead of home confinement, Mazzocco was given a prison stretch.
    • During the sentencing proceeding, Chutkan detailed her disgust with the Capitol riot and rejected comparisons between the J6 defendants and the Black Lives Matter militants who burned down cities over George Floyd's death. 
    • "People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man -- some of those protests became violent," Chutkan said in court. "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 the very real danger that the Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy."
  • Went beyond the prosecution's sentencing suggestion, a request of home confinement as part of a 36-month probationary period, for Ohio couple Brandon J. Miller and Stephanie D. Miller, who spent less time in the Capitol building compared to that of other J6 defendants that day. Chutkan sentenced the husband to 20 days in jail and the wife to 14 days behind bars.

Last year, 50-year-old Christine Priola, formerly an occupational therapist at a Cleveland public school district, begged for mercy in a 10-page letter sent to Chutkan, pleading for leniency, which the jurist did not grant—instead sentencing her to 15 months in federal prison. According to court documents, Priola was carrying a large "The Children Cry Out For Justice" sign and was on the U.S. Senate floor for about 10 minutes. Priola resigned from her faculty position soon after, indicating a desire to switch careers to focus on exposing human trafficking and pedophilia, not wanting to take a COVID-19 vaccine in order to return to school grounds, and opposing paying union dues that she claimed "fund people and groups that support the killing of unborn children."

Chutkan isn't the only judge Trump must appear before in criminal court who's a staunch Democrat donor.

As Townhall was first to report in April, 2020 Biden donor Justice Juan M. Merchan, whose campaign cash not only backed Trump's rival—but was also pledged to "Stop Republicans," "resist Trump," and rally voter turnout for Democrat candidates, was tapped to preside over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's "hush money" prosecution of Trump. Merchan's adult daughter Loren, the president of a consulting company that proudly lists the Biden-Harris campaign as its client, previously served as the director of digital persuasion for now-Vice President Kamala Harris's failed 2020 bid (a.k.a. Kamala Harris for the People).

Both the New York court system and the federal judiciary maintain that the judicial assignments were randomly selected.