The left continues to stack the deck in their favor, hoping that something – anything – that they try to deal former President Trump legally will be “the” winning hand. While so far nothing has stuck, Trump’s odds of winning are facing increasingly difficult challenges as future battles unfold in court.
Democrats scored a major victory when they assigned U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to hear the January 6 case.
Chutkan is a Barack Obama nominee to the D.C. bench, an honor she shares with her husband, Peter Krauthamer, also an Obama appointee. As such, Chutkan is already widely recognized as a far-left judge whose decisions are anything but fair to conservatives who have the misfortune of appearing in her court.
But Chutkan’s family has deeply rooted ties to Marxists in Jamaica, ties that indicate an equally deeply rooted hatred of all things conservative and American. Her grandfather, Frank Hill, founded the Jamaica People’s National Party. Her great uncle, Ken Hill, played an equally important role in the organization and was considered the “most influential member” within the PNP. Ken Hill was widely considered to be “the most dangerous and subversive agent in Jamaica.”
Noelle Chutkan, the niece of Ken Hill and daughter of Frank Hill, is Tanya Chutkan’s mother.
Chutkan’s background alone would be enough to cast her ability to remain impartial into question, but there is the added fact that she is outspoken in her dislike of the former president and prone to outlandish and over-the-top punishments for his supporters.
One instance of her heavy-handed politically motivated rulings involved over-sentencing a Texas resident for his role in taking part in a parade on January 6. Matthew Mazzocco pleaded guilty to “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol. His prosecutors only wanted a minimal sentence, including three months of home detention followed by a 36-month probationary period, $500 dollars in restitutions, and 60 hours of community service.
But Chutkan was having none of it, preferring to sentence the peaceful protestor to 45 days in jail, along with the monetary restitution and community service hours. According to Chutkan, the prosecutor’s requests did not “indicate the severity, the gravity, of the offenses that he committed on January 6.”
Mazzocco’s grave, severe offense was snapping a picture of himself in front of the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
Mazzocco’s case was one example of Chutkan going above and beyond in her desire to punish Trump supporters. In six cases involving January 6 protestors, judges overruled federal prosecutors’ requests for leniency and chose to send them to prison.
Chutkan presided over four of those six cases. In all, she demanded prison sentences for all eleven of the January 6 defendants she found in her courtroom.
In addition, Chutkan is on record as lamenting that Trump remained free. During one January 6 case, she stated, “The people who mobbed that Capitol was there in fealty, in loyalty to one man, not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant: not to the ideals of this county and not to the principles of democracy. It’s blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
Trump has gone on record requesting Chutkan recuse herself because of her political motivations and personal bias. He also requested a move to a more impartial venue than the theatrical courtrooms of Washington, D.C.
Historically, recusal is not granted based on a judge’s expressed opinions or familiarity with the parties and events surrounding the case. It is reserved for cases of professional or personal relationships with the parties involved or attorneys, the judge’s “offense” at the nature of the trial, public comments, and conflicting outside activities. Recusal is “almost never” granted.
While the left mocks Trump’s desire for Chutkan to recuse herself because of her stated dislike for the former president and previous harsh rulings in other January 6 cases, they are actively calling for Trump-supporting Aileen Cannon to recuse herself from a Florida case involving classified documents. The call for the Florida judge to recuse herself follows a ruling in Trump’s favor on a separate case.
Supporters of Chutkan can purchase novelty T-shirts proudly proclaiming themselves to be members of the “Judge Chutkan Fan Club.” The merch is available alongside fanboy items celebrating Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, and Fani Willis.
Unfortunately for Trump, Chutkan was already rabidly salivating and hoping to sink her teeth into the former president long before she got her big chance to “hear” this case. Her courtroom promises to be the circus of the century, complete with a clown behind the bench.
