Tanya Chutkan, An Obama Appointee, Will Preside Over Trump’s Third Criminal Trial 

Tanya Chutkan will be the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s third criminal trial stemming from charges filed against him by a federal grand jury Tuesday. 

A former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2014, Chutkan now serves as a U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C. 

Prior to her nomination, Chutkan served as a trial attorney and supervisor at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and was a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner. 

Over the course of her career, Chutkan has been involved in various high-profile cases and has previously dealt with Trump. 

In January 2023, she denied his plea to withhold records from the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection on the basis that his executive power ‘exists in perpetuity.” In her ruling, which was subsequently upheld by both  the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, she wrote: “But presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”

Chutkan has gained the reputation of taking a hard line with Jan. 6 defendants, serving longer-than-asked-for sentences in seven cases, matching department requests in four others, and sent 11 rioters who have come before her to jail.

Chutkan will now face Trump this Friday at the federal courthouse after it was announced by the Justice Department in a statement that Trump has been summoned to the District following the news of the indictment.