U.S. District Judge Tom Hogan — who went on inactive status last year but has overseen a number of January 6 cases — nodded along and agreed with former Department of Justice official Mary McCord when she casually admitted that she held deep partisan biases during her time at the DOJ.
McCord, who worked as a federal prosecutor for more than 20 years, is perhaps best known for her role in the Russian collusion hoax. McCord is the one who sought the FISA surveillance warrant on Trump campaign associate Carter Page, using circular reports from intelligence agents that were then distributed to the mainstream press as “evidence.” Special Counsel John Durham ultimately concluded that the investigation into Carter Page and the Trump campaign was launched with “evidence” that was fabricated by the FBI.
After leaving the DOJ, she soon returned to Washington to work on the Trump impeachment in 2020, as well as the extremely partisan January 6 committee.
Veteran reporter Julie Kelly recently uncovered an interview between McCord and Hogan at Georgetown Law this past January. While introducing the federal judge, McCord explained that Hogan was eager to discuss the January 6 cases as soon as he became inactive.
“So when he reached out to me a couple of months ago to say, you know, now that I’m on inactive senior status, I can actually talk about the January 6th cases. I can talk about their impact on the court and on the judges and on the entire judicial system and the unprecedented nature of what we saw on January 6th,” McCord said in reference to Hogan.
“Because, you know, when you’re an active sitting judge, you really kind of can’t do that. I experienced a similar feeling of having the, you know, gag taken off when I left the government after more than 20 years. Suddenly, like, you know, you’re not gagged anymore. You can talk and it’s kind of liberating,” she continued as Hogan nodded along in agreement. “Takes like six months to kind of get used to it. And then you, then you realize I have things to say And then you, then you realize I have things to say and you just start saying them.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Hogan repeated the bold-faced lie that Capitol Police officers were killed as a result of the January 6 Capitol protests. In reality, the four people who died that day were all supporters of then-President Trump.
When asked how judges can remain impartial when tasked with presiding over a large volume of January 6 cases, Hogan admitted that it is “a challenge.”
“And I think if the judges are honest, they’ll tell you that about it. If we go through, because each trial you do, the government will show the most horrendous videos and apply to that defendant they can. They’ll also educate the jury so the overriding videos about the riot, like we’ve seen, or more detailed ones about the riot. The judges see that every time they go to trial and see it again and then see it next week again and you see it next week in the next trial,” Hogan explained.
“Particularly bothersome I think to the court, at least to me was, the body worn cameras of the police officers. You know, the riot, who had been sprayed with a lot of mace and reacted to it, and then four committed suicide, two within a couple of weeks and two later, a couple of months later. What they had gone through when you see the body-worn cameras of these people attacking them, it affects you, I think,” he continued, baselessly blaming the suicides on protesters.
Kelly noted that Hogan, like virtually all D.C. District Court judges, have sentenced January 6 defendants to lengthy prison terms that far exceed sentences doled out to similarly situated Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters, if they were charged at all.
“Hogan lied about police fatalities tied to Jan 6 and what happened to Ofc Brian Sicknick,” Kelly wrote in an X post. “Keep in mind–Hogan was reversed by the appellate court for locking up under pretrial detention one of two men accused of spraying Sicknick with pepper spray. George Tanios spent 5+ months in the DC gulag before he was released on appeal.”
After holding the other man, Julian Khater, behind bars for 18 months until Khater was tormented into taking a plea for assaulting officers,” Kelly continued. “Hogan allowed Sicknick’s ex girlfriend to enter a ‘victim impact’ statement then sentenced Khater to 80 month in federal prison.”
More than 1,400 people have been arrested in connection with the January 6 Capitol protests, while Biden regime prosecutors have vowed to bring more than 2,000 cases by January 2026.
The majority of defendants have been sentenced to prison terms on misdemeanor trespassing offenses, something that is unheard of outside January 6 cases. Just this week, Judge Tanya Chutkan — who is overseeing former President Trump’s January 6 case — sentenced a first-time offender to nine months in federal prison for federal trespassing charges.
Judge Chutkan lectured the defendant, Anthony Vo, about the “severity” of the mass trespassing event and pointed to the fact that he attended a prayer vigil in support of January 6 defendants during the three-hour sentencing hearing.
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