Donald Trump’s new criminal case is being handled by judge who said ‘presidents are not kings’
- Obama-appointee Tanya Chutkan has previously ruled against the US leader, and has imposed stiff sentences to his supporters over the Capitol attack
- Other high-profile defendants to pass through her courtroom include Russian government agent Maria Butina, whom she sentenced to 18 months in prison
The Washington judge assigned to the new federal criminal case accusing Donald Trump of conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election has ruled against the former president before and imposed stiff sentences tied to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former public defender who was nominated to the bench by former president Barack Obama, was randomly assigned to the case after Trump was indicted Tuesday. Chutkan will preside over what may become one of the more politically consequential legal fights in US history.
The last time Trump had a case before Chutkan, he lost. In November 2021, she rejected his request to block the congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot from obtaining his White House records. Chutkan wrote that she was unpersuaded by executive-privilege arguments made by his lawyers after President Joe Biden had refused to back Trump’s claim.
“Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president,” Chutkan wrote of Trump. “He retains the right to assert that his records are privileged, but the incumbent president ‘is not constitutionally obliged to honour’ that.”
Trump failed to convince a federal appeal court and the US Supreme Court to overturn Chutkan’s ruling. The lone dissent came from Justice Clarence Thomas.