Democrats Giddy Over How Judge Greeted Trump in Court
With special prosecutor Jack Smith having delivered former President Donald Trump into the arms of the court system, Trump’s detractors exulted Thursday after a hint that the courts would bend to their will.
Trump appeared in federal court Thursday in Washington, D.C., before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya to enter a not-guilty plea to the charges against him in connection with his challenges to the 2020 election. The judge addressed him as “Mr. Trump” with no reference to him as a former president, according to The Washington Post.
That made Democrats and their supporters happy.
Wow. The first words of the Judge overseeing today’s arraignment are “Good afternoon, Mr. Trump.” No mention of Donald Trump being former president. No special treatment. Treating him as just another man in a Courtroom. This is the rule of law at its best.
— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) August 3, 2023
!!! via @MLevineReports – beginning the proceedings, the judge said to Trump: “Good afternoon, Mr. Trump”.
If there is one thing I know Trump loves that he’s called Mr. President now.
— John Santucci (@Santucci) August 3, 2023
Collins: I am told that one thing that irked him particularly was during that hearing today when the magistrate judge referred to him as simply Mr. Trump pic.twitter.com/XPqoy8Wki8
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 4, 2023
100%. This tells us up front that the judge has already set their own bias in.
— Robin T (@RealRobinToupin) August 4, 2023
Upadhyaya did issue a warning NBC said was not common.
“Finally, sir, I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror, or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice,” she said.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, will hear Trump’s case.
The Associated Press called her a “tough punisher” who has handed down stiff sentences against those convicted of crimes in the Capitol incursion.
AP noted that in a 2021 hearing, Chutkan rejected any comparison between those who rioted after the death of George Floyd and the Capitol incursion.
“People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man. Some of those protesters became violent,” she said.
“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 Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy,” she said.
Chutkan ruled against Trump in a 2021 case in which he sought to claim executive privilege to block the release of documents to the House panel investigating the Capitol incursion.
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” she wrote in that ruling.
According to Fox News, in seven cases, Chutkan gave Jan. 6 defendants harsher sentences than what prosecutors sought, including four cases when she sentenced defendants to jail time when none was requested.
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