OAN’s Daniel Baldwin
11:11 AM – Monday, August 14, 2023
United States District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan previously declared that the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests were “mostly peaceful” and expressed anger that 45th President Donald Trump “remains free” after January 6th.
In a sentencing from October 4, 2021, Chutkan criticized the comparison of the January 6 protests to those of Black Lives Matter in the summer of 2020.
“Now, there are some people who have compared the riots of January 6 with other protests that took place throughout the country over the past year and who have suggested that the Capitol rioters are somehow being treated unfairly,” Chutkan wrote. “I flatly disagree.”
“People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man,” Chutkan continued. “Some of those protesters became violent. But to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the January 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.”
This statement came in the sentencing of Matthew Mazzocco, a J6 defendant who pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of “Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.” The Department of Justice recommended three months under home confinement and probation for Mazzocco, but Chutkan sentenced him to 45 days in jail plus 60 hours of community service. This came after she noted that Mazzocco was barely in the Capitol and didn’t cause harm to anyone or anything.
“Mr. Mazzocco was in the Capitol for only 12 minutes, and he did tell others, don’t take or break anything, noting that they would probably get in trouble for what they did,” Chutkan wrote.
Chutkan, in a sentencing hearing in October 2022, expressed anger that Trump is not behind bars.
“I see the videotapes,” Chutkan wrote. “I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats they were wearing and the garb. 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 country; and not to the principles of democracy. It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
Trump highlighted this very statement by Chutkan in a Truth Social post, saying, “[Chutkan] obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!”
Chutkan, in a hearing to settle a dispute over a protective order in Trump’s case, repeatedly told John Lauro, Trump’s attorney, that she would keep politics out of her courtroom.
“I intend to keep politics out of it,” she told Lauro.
Chutkan was also the judge who refused to block the release of documents to the January 6th Committee. In her ruling, she wrote, “Presidents are not kings, and [Trump] is not President.”
According to a new YouGov/CBS poll, 63% of independents believe the indictments against the 45th president are intended to stop his campaign.
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CORRECTION (August 14, 2023, 5:36 p.m. PT): Video package added to article.