Judge overseeing Trump's Jan. 6 case says she won't go easy on him just because he's running for president again

• The judge overseeing the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump said she won't go easy on him just because he's running for office.
• "The existence of a political campaign is not going to have any bearing on my decision," Judge Chutkan said.

The judge presiding over the Justice Department's latest indictment of former President Donald Trump said Friday that Trump's 2024 candidacy will not affect her decision-making in the case.

"I reiterate: the existence of a political campaign is not going to have any bearing on my decision, any more than any other lawyer coming before me saying their client needs to do their job," US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said.

She made the comment during a hearing about a protective order that the special counsel Jack Smith's office is seeking in its January 6 case against the former president. Trump's lawyers are not opposed to the request, and Friday's hearing focused on the scope of that order.

A grand jury indicted Trump earlier this month on four charges related to the deadly Capitol riot: conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Trump's lawyers have repeatedly pointed to his campaign schedule — as well as his status as a former president — while asking judges in a multitude of civil and criminal cases against him for leniency.

But "I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign on both sides," Chutkan said Friday. She added that Trump's political campaign "has to yield to the orderly administration of justice."

The judge also, in an apparent allusion to Trump's public comments about the indictments against him and his attacks on the prosecutors bringing those indictments, noted that Trump, "like every American, has a first amendment right to free speech. But that right is not absolute."

At another point in the hearing, Trump's defense lawyer John Lauro called the proposed protective order a "contempt trap" and later said that it requires more notice.

"We're asking for fair play here," he said. "All we're asking for is fairness."

"I intend to keep politics out of this," Chutkan replied.

Chutkan ultimately ruled that Trump can't speak about sensitive material used in the trial. She rejected Trump's request that he can talk about witness testimony and videos from the trial, saying it would be "too great a risk that witnesses may be intimidated."

An Obama nominee, Chutkan has handed out some of the toughest sentences to January 6 defendants who have appeared before her.

According to the Associated Press, she agreed with or exceeded prosecutors' sentencing recommendations in 19 out of the 38 sentences she's handed down related to the Capitol riot — and in four of the cases, the AP reported, prosecutors had sought no jail time at all.