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D.C. judge handling Trump's trial has reputation of being the toughest on Jan. 6 defendants [1]

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Date: 2023-08-04

Former President Donald Trump lucked out when U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon was randomly selected to handle the Mar-a-Lago documents case in Southern Florida. But his luck may have run out when U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was assigned to preside over his trial in Washington, D.C., on multiple counts of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Chutkan has previously tangled in court with Trump over events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In a procedural case, Chutkan ruled favorably on a request by the House Jan. 6 Select Committee to access Trump’s White House records. In her November 2021 ruling she wrote: “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.” Among federal circuit court judges in D.C., Chutkan has handed down the harshest sentences to Jan. 6 defendants, The Associated Press reported. She is also the only federal judge in the district who has given longer sentences to Jan. 6 defendants than federal prosecutors had requested, NBC News reported. RELATED STORY: Trump's Jan. 6 trial won't be televised. Democrats—and the defendant—want to change that

Campaign Action In December 2021, Chutkan sentenced Robert Palmer, a Florida man who sprayed Capitol police with a fire extinguisher, to 63 months in jail. At the time, it was the longest sentence imposed against a Jan. 6 rioter, exceeding the prosecution’s request. Politico reported that at Palmer’s sentencing hearing, Chutkan noted that no one accused of orchestrating the effort to overturn the election results had been held accountable.

“You have made a very good point,” she told Jan. 6 rioter Robert Palmer at his December 2021 sentencing, “that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged.” “The issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me. I don’t have any influence on that,” she said. “I have my opinions, but they are not relevant.”

Now that very issue is before her in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s latest indictment accusing Trump of attempting to subvert our democracy. Judges Cannon and Chutkan do share one thing in common—they both are immigrants. Cannon, 42, was born in Cali, Colombia, and raised in Miami by her Cuban mother and American father. Chutkan, 61, was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and came to the U.S. to attend George Washington University and then law school at the University of Pennsylvania. But their rulings in previous procedural cases involving Trump documents make for a startling contrast. Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed by the Senate in 2020, showed great deference to Trump after the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate when in September 2022 she decided to appoint a “special master” to review the documents seized by the FBI. Her unusual ruling initially barred federal agents and prosecutors from reviewing the classified documents. It wasn’t until December that a conservative-leaning appeals court issued a sharply worded ruling overturning her decision. It remains to be seen whether Cannon has learned anything from her rebuke by the appellate court. Cannon has set a trial date for May 2024 in the classified documents case. Smith’s team had requested a December 2023 trial date. But Cannon may have inadvertently opened a window for the case involving Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election case to be brought to trial more quickly. Trump’s lawyers want to delay any trial until after the November 2024 presidential election. Trump hopes that an election victory would allow him to make the indictments go away either through his new attorney general or a pardon.

The magistrate who handled Trump’s arraignment on Thursday said Chutkan is expected to set a trial date at an Aug. 28 hearing after reviewing briefs submitted by prosecutors and Trump’s defense lawyers, Politico reported. Chutkan certainly didn’t waste any time in ruling favorably on the request by the House Jan. 6 Select Committee to access Trump’s White House files—a ruling that was upheld by an appeals court and not reviewed by the Supreme Court. President Joe Biden had authorized release of the documents, but Trump tried to assert that he retained executive privilege.

Politico said Chutkan’s ruling “dealt the ex-president one of the most significant legal blows of his lifetime, triggering perhaps the greatest deluge of evidence about his bid to subvert the 2020 election—a scheme for which he now stands charged with serious crimes.”

“That evidence — call logs, memos, internal strategy papers and more from the desks of Trump’s most trusted advisers — became the backbone of the committee’s evidence and shaped much of the public’s understanding of his effort to seize a second term he didn’t win. Much of that evidence resurfaced ...in special counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment of Trump, which referenced call logs and White House records that were already familiar to Americans who tracked the Jan. 6 committee proceedings.

described the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as an “unprecedented attempt to prevent the lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next [that] caused property damage, injuries, and death,” In her November 2021 ruling, Chutkanthe Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as an “unprecedented attempt to prevent the lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next [that] caused property damage, injuries, and death,” The Guardian reported.

The New York Times noted that Chutkan moved “unusually swiftly” in handling Trump’s lawsuit to block release by the National Archives of his White House records. It took her just 23 days from the time Trump’s lawyers filed their case to issue her ruling.

Cannon has very little trial experience during tenure as a federal prosecutor and judge. Most of the criminal cases that she dealt with were settled by plea deals. A Reuters report published Friday underscored Cannon’s lack of experience in handling criminal trials. The story noted that she made “key errors” during a June trial of defendant William Spearman, who was facing child pornography charges. Reuters said Cannon refused to allow members of the public, including Spearman’s family, into the courtroom during jury selection, citing a lack of space, despite pleas by both the prosecution and defense. Legal experts told Reuters that this violated the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the right to a public trial. She also forgot to swear in prospective jurors.

Unlike Cannon, Chutkan has considerable trial experience. According to her biography on the Washington, D.C. District Court website , Chutkan worked as a trial attorney and supervisor for the District of Columbia Public Defender Service for 11 years, trying over 30 cases, including numerous serious felony matters. She then worked for 12 years at the private law firm of Boies, Schiller, & Flexner LLP, specializing in litigation and white collar criminal defense. She was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by President Barack Obama in June 2014 and confirmed by the Senate in a 95-0 vote.

blocked the administration from preventing undocumented, pregnant teenagers from having access to abortion-related services, and also issued an injunction During nearly a decade on the bench, Chutkan’s rulings in some notable cases involving the Trump administration have often reflected a liberal outlook, The New York Times reported. For example, the Times noted that shethe administration from preventing undocumented, pregnant teenagers from having access to abortion-related services, and also issued an injunction

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/4/2185198/-D-C-judge-handling-Trump-s-trial-has-reputation-of-being-the-toughest-on-Jan-6-defendants

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