Report: Judge Chutkan Compares January 6 to 9/11 Attacks, Boston Marathon Bombing

U.S. Judge Tanya S. Chutkan reportedly compared the January 6 Capitol riot to the 9/11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday when she questioned the need for a long delay before former President Donald Trump’s trial in Washington, D.C.

Chutkan’s remarks were reported by Julie Kelly, who has covered the trials of defendants accused of participating in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol via her Substack publication, “Declassified with Julie Kelly.”

Trump faces charges in D.C. of conspiring unlawfully to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, through challenges and claims of election fraud that Special Counsel Jack Smith has linked to the January 6 riot.

Chutkan reportedly made her remarks in deciding to set the trial date at March 4, 2024 — one day before Super Tuesday, the most important day of the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is the leading Republican candidate.

In dismissing the request of Trump’s attorneys for a later trial date that would push the case past the 2024 election and allow them more time to review millions of documents of possible evidence, Chutkan reportedly said (according to the proceeding transcript, obtained by Kelly):

The trial will start thee years, one month, and 27 days after the events of January 6, 2021.

The trial involving the Boston Marathon bombing began less than two years after the events. The trial involving Zacarias Moussaoui for his role in the September 11 attacks was set to begin one year after the attacks; but due to continuances, appeals, and voluminous discovery, it began roughly four years later.

Chutkan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and donated to his presidential campaigns, has been criticized as politically biased. She has also suggested, in a previous case, that Trump ought to be in prison.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.