Tanya Chutkan: The stern judge in Donald Trump's election case

Donald Trump may recognise a familiar adversary when he stands before District Judge Tanya Chutkan to answer to the plethora of allegations made against him for his involvement in the tampering of the 2020 election.

Judge Chutkan famously stated, "Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not president," in 2021 in response to Trump's attempts to prevent a Congressional committee from gaining access to reams of his administration's White House documents.

The congressional investigation was revived when Special Counsel Jack Smith's case against Trump was randomly handed to her. This assignment may concern Trump's legal team, as Smith has a reputation for harsh sentences for riot-related convicted individuals, the BBC reported.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she attended George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania to study law before working as a public defender in Washington DC for over a decade where she argued "argued several appellate cases and tried over 30 cases, including numerous serious felony matters", according to her biography.

In 2014, president Obama nominated her to the US District Court for the District of Columbia, and she was confirmed by the Senate in a 95-0 vote.

Judge Chutkan has seen dozens of individuals accused of involvement in the January 6 riots appear before her. While some colleagues criticise Trump's role, few have handed down harsher sentences to those convicted of wrongdoing.

She has been the most likely to support longer prison sentences than recommended by the justice department.

In a case involving an Ohio couple accused of entering the Capitol building through a broken window during a riot, she gave them 20 and 14-day jail terms, despite prosecutors seeking house arrest.

Out of the 31 defendants she has sentenced, all have at least some jail time, and she has been remarkably candid in sentencing defendants to hefty punishments.

"It is not patriotism, it is not standing up for America to stand up for one man - who knows full well that he lost — instead of the Constitution he was trying to subvert," she said at a sentencing hearing last year.

Explaining her blunt approach, Judge Chutkan has previously said that it "has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort, is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment".

She has already lamented the fact that those who willfully lied to Trump's followers went unpunished.

"You have made a very good point," she said during one sentencing hearing in 2021, "that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged".