U.S. District Decide Tanya Chutkan, who’s making ready to supervise Donald Trump’s election interference trial, dismissed on Wednesday claims by the previous president and his allies that Jan. 6 defendants are “hostages.”
Because the Related Press reported, Chutkan’s remarks got here through the sentencing listening to of Anthony Vo, a 31-year-old Indiana man who has expressed little regret for storming the U.S. Capitol along with his mom.
As a substitute of victims, Chutkan stated, Jan. 6 defendants are “being saved [in jail] as a result of they’re harmful folks.”
Some 1,265 folks have been charged in connection to the riot, with greater than 450 accused of assaulting or resisting police and different authorities workers.
Trump, whose false and inflammatory claims of a stolen election helped spark the violence on Jan. 6, has continued to precise sturdy help and even raised cash for his imprisoned followers. “Some folks name them prisoners. I name them hostages,” Trump stated in January. “Launch the J6 hostages, Joe [Biden]. Launch them, Joe. You are able to do it actual straightforward, Joe.”
Following Trump’s lead, some Jan. 6 defendants have remained defiant. Throughout his trial, Vo himself attended the so-called “Freedom Nook,” a nightly vigil for defendants held exterior their jail in Washington, D.C.. Chutkan dominated that attending the vigil was a violation of his launch circumstances.
Vo, who calls himself a “J6 wrongful convict” on social media, was contrite proper earlier than his sentencing, claiming that he was “sorry for all the things” and “wasn’t there to overthrow the democratic course of or something.” However he was brazenly hostile within the wake of his conviction final yr on 4 misdemeanors associated to unlawfully getting into the U.S. Capitol. In a January publish on X, Vo asserted that “there was zero jury of friends and 100% a kangaroo court docket.”
Chutkan was unswayed by Vo’s in-court change of coronary heart, deciding his actions merited 9 months behind bars. The choose has put a string of Capitol attackers behind bars over the past three years, overruling the comparatively delicate sentencing suggestions of federal prosecutors. In response to the Related Press, she has described incarceration as an applicable punishment for criminals who not solely tried to overthrow the democratic course of but in addition violently assaulted round 140 Capitol cops.
Chutkan is slated to preside over Trump’s personal trial, which has been delayed because the Supreme Courtroom hears his argument that he’s resistant to prosecution.