Democracy Dies in Darkness
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Judge Tanya Chutkan is the toughest Jan. 6 sentencer. Next on her docket: Trump.

Trump’s trial judge in D.C. is a former public defender and was one of the first U.S. judges to reject his executive privilege claims to withhold Jan. 6 White House records

By
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August 1, 2023 at 10:41 p.m. EDT
Television news crews set up Tuesday outside of federal court in Washington. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

With U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan as the trial judge overseeing his case in Washington, Donald Trump’s legal troubles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack come nearly full circle.

Trump’s federal criminal indictment on charges of attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election was randomly assigned Tuesday to Chutkan, 61, who over a year and a half ago became one of the first federal judges in D.C. to reject the former president’s efforts to use executive privilege to withhold White House communications from Jan. 6 investigators, in that instance from the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot.