Former President Donald Trump‘s defense team will face a “no-nonsense” judge in the 2020 election trial, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has been randomly assigned to oversee Trump’s case after the former president was charged on four counts related to the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. Prosecutors allege that Trump attempted to remain in power after losing the 2020 presidential election to President Joe Biden.
Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, is no stranger to cases relating to January 6, and has come to be known as the “toughest punisher” among the judges presiding over cases involving those who participated in the Capitol attack. In some instances, Chutkan has even issued sentences harsher than recommended by federal prosecutors.
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According to Kirschner, who spoke with MSNBC‘s Joy Reid on Thursday night after Trump appeared for his arraignment hearing in Washington, D.C., Chutkan’s tough demeanor may pose a challenge for the former president’s legal team, which will likely push to delay the January 6 trial as long as possible.
Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday to all four criminal counts attached to the DOJ’s indictment.
“I think Donald Trump and his defense team have met their match in Judge Tanya Chutkan,” Kirschner told Reid. “Because you know, as we say in D.C. criminal justice circles, when a judge is tough, strong, no-nonsense, and you can’t put anything over on them … Judge Chutkan don’t play.”
Trump’s attorneys already attempted to delay the trial involving his handling of classified documents in Florida federal court, arguing that a date should be set after the November 2024 presidential election. Trump is leading his party in preliminary poll numbers for the next GOP presidential nomination.
Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, however, set the classified documents case to head to trial on May 20, 2024.
Federal Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya, who oversaw Thursday’s arraignment in D.C., has ordered both parties to propose a trial date within the next few weeks. Despite the Trump team’s expected efforts to delay the trial, Kirschner anticipates that a date could be set as early as January or February.
Newsweek emailed Trump attorney John Lauro on Thursday night for comment.
Kirschner also predicted that other cases involving the former president could “melt away or recede into the background” in light of Trump’s January 6 case, such as the 34 business fraud charges the former president is facing in Manhattan, or the defamation lawsuit filed against him by former columnist E. Jean Carroll.
“These things may have a way of sort of clearing themselves up somehow, because I think, you know, most people recognize that Donald Trump needs to be tried,” Kirschner said on MSNBC.
“And the American people, when they go to the polls in November 2024, in the event Donald Trump is the Republican candidate, I think they should know and I think most of them would want to know if they’re voting for a convicted felon or they’re voting for somebody who has been completely exonerated at trial because apparently he did nothing wrong,” he added.
