U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of Washington, D.C., delivered a blow on Friday to President Donald Trump‘s planned two-year renovation for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, previously set to commence on July 5, and ordered the president’s name to be removed from the arts center.Judge Cooper was nominated to the bench in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama and subsequently confirmed by the Senate in a unanimous vote. Trump grouped Cooper among the “Radical Left Democrats” in a Truth Social post, due to his association with Obama.Apart from the Kennedy Center lawsuit, Cooper has presided over cases tangentially related to Trump, including the prosecutions of defendants who took part in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Judge Christopher Cooper of the District Court of Washington, D.C.
In one such case, the judge sentenced Christopher Alberts of Maryland to seven years in prison in 2023 for entering the U.S. Capitol armed with a loaded handgun and attacking police officers with a wooden pallet. When Alberts claimed he didn’t want to hurt anyone, Cooper said he was one of the leaders of the mob during the riot that day and “not simply a bystander.”
Among hundreds of Jan. 6 riot participants, Alberts was later pardoned by Trump once he returned to the White House last year.
