Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office accused Trump of violating the gag order numerous times since it went into effect.
The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money case on Tuesday held the former president in criminal contempt over a series of posts on Truth Social that he said violated a gag order barring any attacks on jurors and witnesses.
Judge Juan Merchan ruled Trump in contempt for nine violations of his gag order, with a fine of $1,000 for each instance. The order prohibits the former president from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding,” and “public statements about any prospective juror or any juror.”
Merchan had indicated on April 23 that he was not impressed by the arguments from the defense, telling one of Trump’s attorneys that he was “losing all credibility” when he suggested that Trump was exercising caution to comply with the gag order.
There is a possibility that he might be despite the monetary punishment. Trump just committed Criminal Contempt and has thereby violated his pre-trial release conditions on nearly all of his other trials. It’s within their rights now to lock him up until the other trials commence and conclude.
I’m tempering my expectations here, because those judges would still have to hold a hearing to give Trump’s legal team a chance to argue that he did not violate his per-release agreement. Nevertheless, it’s on the table now, all that remains is finding a judge with enough of a spine to uphold the rule of law equally.
Him being put on notice in this specific trial is a good thing. The next step after this is a jail cell if he keeps running his mouth. Hopefully that’ll mean this entire process will be a lot quieter now with fewer outbursts and interruptions. Although. a lot of pundits are speculating that Trump will start toeing the line now so that he only has one infraction of his gag order at a time to intentionally get thrown in jail so he can turn it into a political stunt and garner sympathy. It’s not clear if he’ll get the maximum 30 days or not, but it doesn’t really matter, he’ll try and spend as little time in jail as possible, but make it seem like he is a victim of political persecution.