Judge Merchan Holds Donald Trump in Criminal Contempt for Gag Order Violations, Threatens Jail Time
Jane Rosenberg/Pool Photo via AP
New York County Judge Juan Merchan has ruled that former President Donald Trump violated a gag order during his trial, holding him in criminal contempt and threatening him with jail time for any further infractions.
“Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” the judge wrote in the order:
ORDERED, that Defendant pay a $1,000 fine for each of the nine violations of this Court's lawful order by the close of business on Friday, May 3, 2024; and it is further ORDERED that Defendant remove the seven offending posts from Defendant's Truth Social account and the two offending posts from his campaign website by 2:15pm Tuesday, April 30, 2024.
Merchan had the authority to send Trump to jail for up to 30 days for allegedly violating his gag order. Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg backed down from asking the judge to jail Trump for allegedly violating the order, according to court reporters.
Judge Juan Merchan (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Trump appeared to call Bragg's bluff. Trump said in April that it would be a “GREAT HONOR” to become a “modern-day Nelson Mandela” in the “clink” for speaking the truth about Merchan.
The gag order prevents Trump from making public comments about witnesses participating in the trial, counsel other than Bragg, “members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or … the family members of any counsel or staff member, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with … counsel’s or staff’s work” on the case. It also encompasses prospective jurors.
“The gag order has to come off,” Trump previously told reporters outside the Manhattan courthouse. “People are allowed to speak about me, and I have a gag order, just to show you how much more unfair it is.”
“They can say anything they want,” Trump said about his political foes. “They can continue to make up lies and everything else. They lie. They’re real scum. But you know what, I’m not allowed to speak.”
“So why am I gagged about telling the truth?” Trump questioned. “I’m only telling the truth. They’re not telling the truth.”
Bragg charged Trump with 34 felonies in the criminal case concerning alleged election interference and a legal retainer paid to Michael Cohen. The trial is the first-ever criminal trial of a president of the United States. Trump could face jail time if convicted.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (Michael M. Santiago/Getty)
A majority of Americans doubt Trump’s criminal trial will conclude with a fair outcome, a CNN poll on Friday found. Increasing numbers of Americans see the criminal trial of Trump as irrelevant to his fitness for reelection, the CNN poll further found, while only 13 percent believe Trump is being treated the same as other “criminal defendants.”
Only about one-third of American adults believe Trump did anything illegal regarding the case, an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found Tuesday.
The case is New York v. Trump, No. 71543-23, in the New York Supreme Court for New York County.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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