Cruz Says Judge in Jan. 6 Case Will Be ‘Hostile’ to Trump

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks on Title 42 immigration policy in Washington on May 3, 2023. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is confident that the federal judge assigned to former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 case will be “relentlessly hostile” to him.

During the Aug. 2 episode of his “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast, the senator said that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has “a reputation for being far-left, even by D.C. District Court standards.”

The judge, he noted, has set aside multiple federal death penalty cases and is the only federal judge to have issued harsher sentences for Jan. 6 defendants than Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors requested.

“We can anticipate a judge who is going to be relentlessly hostile to Donald Trump, who is going to bend over backwards for the Biden DOJ, and who is going to make ruling after ruling after ruling against Trump,” Mr. Cruz said.

A former assistant public defender, Judge Chutkan was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate—including Mr. Cruz—in June 2014. She was assigned to Mr. Trump’s case earlier this week after he was indicted by a federal grand jury over his claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

But in addition to his concerns about the judge, Mr. Cruz also expressed doubt as to the impartiality of a jury selected in Washington.

Describing the area as “the most Democrat” jurisdiction in the country, he said: “The likelihood that a D.C. jury will vote to convict Donald Trump is exceptionally high. And the facts don’t matter; the laws don’t matter; they hate him.”

Given the judge’s record and the location of the jury, the senator said it was a “very real possibility” that Mr. Trump would be convicted. However, Mr. Cruz added that any conviction would likely be reversed later by the Supreme Court.

Indictment

The latest indictment marks the third criminal case against the 45th president. At the federal level, Mr. Trump is also facing charges over his handling of classified documents. In New York, he stands accused of falsifying business records in relation to hush money payments made during the 2016 election cycle.

The new case stems from DOJ special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the aftermath of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

“The attack on our nation’s capital on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” Mr. Smith said in announcing the indictment on Aug. 1. “As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies—lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.”

Mr. Trump faces four charges in the case: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy to deprive citizens of the “free exercise” of constitutional rights.

Thus far, the former president is the only person to have been charged in the case, though the 45-page indictment lists six “co-conspirator” attorneys without revealing their names.

A review by The Epoch Times has determined that five of the unnamed individuals are almost certainly former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Chapman University School of Law professor John Eastman, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, former DOJ civil attorney Jeffrey Clark, and appellate lawyer Kenneth Cheseboro.

Protesters roam through the U.S. Capitol Rotunda after breaching the building on Jan. 6, 2021. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The indictment did not provide enough information to identify the sixth co-conspirator, described as a “political consultant” who provided contacts and participated in conference calls regarding alternative electors.

Tearing into the indictment in an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier, John Lauro, an attorney for Mr. Trump, said his client is being “indicted for free speech.”

“He’s being indicted for objecting to the way that the 2020 election was carried out,” Mr. Lauro said. “And any American that takes that view should be equally concerned—are they next? Because the reality is that, if a president can be indicted for free speech, then anybody can be indicted.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s campaign questioned the timing of the indictment.

“Why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges, right in the middle of President Trump’s winning campaign for 2024? Why was it announced the day after the big Crooked Joe Biden scandal broke out from the Halls of Congress? The answer is election interference!” the campaign said in a statement.

“President Trump will not be deterred by disgraceful and unprecedented political targeting!” the campaign added.

‘Straight-Out Election Interference’

During his Aug. 2 podcast, Mr. Cruz agreed with the campaign’s conclusion, holding that the case is “straight-out election interference.”

Describing the indictment as “thoroughly underwhelming,” the senator said there was no “smoking gun” in the document indicating that the special counsel had uncovered new information previously unknown to the public.

Instead, he noted, the document seeks to criminalize the former president’s speech surrounding an election.

“They really, really, really don’t like that Donald Trump alleged that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election and that it changed the outcome,” he said. “Now, I get that they don’t like that, but not liking it is not the same as saying Trump saying that … is somehow criminal conduct.”

Mr. Cruz also agreed that the timing of the indictment was suspect, given that it immediately followed testimony from a key witness in House Republicans’ probe of the Biden family’s business dealings.

“I do not think it is an accident that this was handed down the day after the Devon Archer testimony,” he said, describing the former Hunter Biden associate’s testimony as “very bad for Joe Biden.”

During a closed-door interview with members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Mr. Archer told the panel that the president, during his time as vice president, would often call his son during business meetings and chat with those in the room on speaker.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any involvement in the business activities of his family members.

“Every time there’s a bad development on evidence of corruption or criminal misconduct by Hunter Biden, or in particular, Joe Biden, the next day, you see the Department of Justice try to change the narrative, try to break news,” Mr. Cruz said, charging that the timing of the indictment was meant to drive Mr. Archer’s testimony from the news cycle.

But ultimately, the senator said he believed the purpose of the indictment was to prevent Mr. Trump from winning the 2024 presidential election.

“Their nirvana is to have multiple criminal trials against Donald Trump, all proceeding ideally in September and October of 2024,” Mr. Cruz contended. “And they believe they’ll throw so much mud on the wall that Trump will be unelectable. That’s their political objective.”

He added, “Whether you want Donald Trump to be president or not, that question should not be answered by a corrupt Department of Justice weaponizing the legal system.”

Petr Svab contributed to this report.