At her first appearance in the criminal case against Donald Trump for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan repeatedly warned the former president’s lawyers that politics would not be tolerated in her courtroom.
“The fact that [Trump is] running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice,” Chutkan said during the Aug. 11 hearing. “If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be.”
But even as she warns Trump about his “inflammatory” language, Chutkan has routinely issued politically charged rulings and made incendiary statements of her own while presiding over some 30 cases involving Trump supporters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, melee at the U.S. Capitol.
A review of thousands of pages of hearing transcripts reveals that Chutkan has repeatedly expressed strong and settled opinions about the issues at the heart of United States v. Donald Trump — the criminal case she is now presiding over.
These include her public assertions that the 2020 election was beyond reproach, that the Jan. 6 protests were orchestrated by Trump, and that the former president is guilty of crimes. She has described Jan. 6 as a “mob attack” on “the very foundation of our democracy” and branded the issue at the heart of the case she is hearing — Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen — a conspiracy theory.
