Who is Tanya Chutkan? Judge in Donald Trump’s Jan 6 riots case was appointed by Barack Obama and once repped Theranos
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The judge who will preside over the latest criminal case against former President Donald Trump is known for harshly sentencing the January 6 rioters and previously worked at a law firm affiliated with first son Hunter Biden that represented the dubious blood-testing company Theranos.
The Associated Press described DC federal judge Tanya Chutkan as the "toughest punisher" of rioters charged with crimes related to the 2021 riots. Chutkan was randomly selected to preside over Trump's criminal trial in the nation's capital.
Who is Tanya Chutkan?
In June 2014, Judge Tanya Chutkan was appointed to the District of Columbia's US District Court. She obtained her BA in Economics from George Washington University and her JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she also served as an Associate Editor of the Law Review and a Legal Writing Fellow. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica.
The AP wrote in a profile article last year, "Chutkan has handed out tougher sentences than the [Justice Department] was seeking in seven cases, matched its requests in four others and sent all 11 riot defendants who have come before her behind the bar. In the four cases in which prosecutors did not seek jail time, Chutkan gave terms ranging from 14 days to 45 days." As she directs the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith, Trump's 77-year-old record could cause problems.
According to the AP, Chutkan jailed "an Ohio couple [who] climbed through a broken window of the US Capitol and livestreamed a video of themselves inside[, a] Texas mortgage broker posed for a selfie in front of rioters breaching the building [and an] Indiana hair salon owner celebrated on Facebook a day after she joined the pro-Donald Trump mob," despite the fact that prosecutors had not requested it.
The judge was nominated by President Barack Obama
After a more contentious 54–40 cloture vote, the 61-year-old judge was officially confirmed by the Senate without opposition. The judge was nominated by President Barack Obama. She is wed to Peter Krauthamer, a former judge on the DC Superior Court.
Her resume includes a previous position that will probably get a lot of attention from Trump supporters. According to a biography she provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, she worked at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner from 2002 until she was confirmed as a federal judge in 2014, as reported by New York Post.
Hunter courted wealthy foreign individuals in nations like Romania and Ukraine, allegedly cutting side deals that gave him more money than if he had signed them to Boies Schiller. It is still being determined if the first son and Chutkan ever interacted while connected to the firm.
About Tanya Chutkan's well-known case
In one of Chutkan's well-known cases at Boies Schiller, she defended Elizabeth Holmes' blood-testing company Theranos in a lawsuit against a rival who was accused of disclosing "confidential and proprietary" company information. On a 2013 order by a judge in the DC superior court ruling against the business, Chutkan is listed as one of the firm's attorneys.
