Former President Donald Trump on Monday shared a quote from U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing his 2020 election case, demonstrating her apparent bias against him as she lamented the former president “remains free to this day.”
“The following TRUTH is a quote by highly partisan Judge Tanya Chutkan, angrily sentencing a J-6er in October of 2022. She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!” Trump said on Truth Social, sharing the judge’s quote, which she made during last year’s sentencing of Christine Priola. Priola was ultimately sentenced to 15 months in prison.
“I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats that they were wearing, and the garb,” Chutkan — who was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in June 2014 by the Obama administration — said at the time, concluding that the Capitol protesters were loyal to Trump rather than the U.S. Constitution.
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Alana Mastrangelo / Breitbart News“And the people who mobbed that Capitol were 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,” she said of Trump.
The year prior, Chutkan demonstrated her bias further, dismissing those who compared the treatment of Capitol protesters to the Black Lives Matter rioters.
“U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan called it a false equivalence ‘to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights’ to the mob that ‘was trying to overthrow the government,’” the AP reported in October 2021, rejecting claims that January 6 protesters were being treated unfairly in comparison to BLM protesters.
Comparing the two “ignores the very real danger that the Jan. 6 riots pose to the foundation of our democracy,” Chutkan concluded.
Chutkan, who has maintained that she intends to keep politics out of the proceedings, also warned Trump’s lawyer John Lauro to convey to Trump that he should “take special care in your public statements about this case,” according to reports.
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“Your client’s defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom, not on the internet,” Chutkan said.
Chutkan added, “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”
Trump has publicly stated that Chutkan should recuse herself from the case, as have his allies.
She even used the "mostly peaceful" line to describe the BLM riots!
Time for this judge to recuse herself if she's got an ounce of integrity. https://t.co/CV24TFhcNj
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) August 14, 2023
Notably, she worked at the high-powered D.C. law firm Boies, Schiller, & Flexner, at the same time Hunter Biden worked for the firm as a lobbyist.
Trump’s most recent remarks follow Chutkan ruling Friday that Trump “will be allowed to comment on his case publicly, but will not be allowed to comment on witnesses or to reveal witness testimony, including videos and transcripts,” as Breitbart News reported.
“When you look at what’s happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent,” Trump said following his arraignment in D.C.
“This was never supposed to happen in America. This is the persecution of the person that’s leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot. So if you can’t beat him you persecute him or you prosecute him,” Trump added. “We can’t let this happen in America. Thank you very much.”
WATCH — “Very Sad Day for America”: Trump Slams “Persecution” Following Arraignment
Alana Mastrangelo / Breitbart News
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