“The effects of that day are still being felt,” [U.S. District Judge Tanya] Chutkan said before sentencing defendant Spencer Offman to 30 days in prison for breaching the building during the riot.
Chutkan used Friday’s sentencing in the relatively routine Jan. 6 case to make a case against complacency about the danger that the attack posed to democracy, characterizing it as a “violent attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power” in which rioters were “desecrating the center of our government.”
Chutkan, who is also presiding over Donald Trump’s federal criminal case in Washington stemming from his efforts to subvert the 2020 election — culminating in the Jan. 6 violence — didn’t mention the former president in her remarks or give any hint as to how she will handle the case following the Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump is immune from prosecution for some of the events in question.