STATESIDE

The federal judge in Washington assigned to the election fraud has been quite tough so far on defendants who stormed the US Capitol in an attack incited by Trump’s claims of a stolen election. She has also ruled against Trump already.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has sentenced at least 38 people convicted of Capitol riot-related crimes. All 38 received prison terms, ranging from ten days to over five years, according to an Associated Press analysis of court records. Furthermore, Chutkan has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in exactly half of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t even seeking any jail time at all.

This woman is tough.

Further dimming prospects of Trump evading the January 6 charges in court, Chutkan also ruled against Trump in a separate related case. In November 2021, she refused his request to block by asserting executive privilege the release of documents to the House of Representatives select investigative committee.

She rejected Trump’s arguments that he could retain some control over documents from his administration even after President Joe Biden had cleared the way for the National Archives to accept the papers. She wrote that Trump could not claim that such a presidential privilege “exists in perpetuity.”

In a line from her ruling, Chutkan wrote: “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff (Trump) is not President.”

Meantime, Trump is, counterintuitively, maintaining a really impressive hold on the GOP nomination for next year. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed that he is more than lapping the growing field of his potential rivals.

The poll, released Monday, showed Trump with 54 percent of GOP voter support. Florida governor Ron DeSantis trailed in second place with only 17 percent. No one else in the field polled at more than three percent. Though Trump is customarily guilty of preposterous bombast, particularly when talking about himself, he is right on this one when he claims to be obliterating his field of Republican opponents.

Furthermore, Trump