Donald Trump has been warned he could be jailed if he continues to violate a gag order banning him from attacking jurors, court staff and witnesses in his hush money trial.
The former president was held in criminal contempt on Tuesday and fined $9,000 for breaching the order nine times in a string of posts on Truth Social – his own social media platform – and his campaign website.
Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing the criminal trial, said he would “not tolerate” further violations and “if necessary and appropriate” he would impose “an incarceratory punishment”.
In a campaign email to supporters sent shortly after the ruling, Mr Trump hit out at Judge Merchan – who is not protected by the gag order – and labelled him a “Democrat judge”.
“I was fined $9,000 for 9 gag order violations,” he said. “They want to silence me.”
Prosecutors claimed last week that the Republican presidential nominee had violated the court order on 10 occasions.
The offending posts included attacks on key witnesses Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former “fixer”, and Stormy Daniels, the p*rn star whose alleged tryst with Mr Trump and subsequent $130,000 payoff is at the centre of the case.
Writing on Truth Social, Mr Trump accused Mr Merchan of being a “highly conflicted judge” who is “rigging” the election.
“I am the only presidential candidate in history to be gagged”, he wrote.
Mr Trump on Tuesday removed the nine posts which were found to have violated the gag order.
Judge labels defence argument ‘absurd’
Judge Merchan rejected the defence’s argument that reposting articles and comments on social media did not count, saying it was “counterintuitive and indeed absurd”. He also poured scorn on Mr Trump’s claims he was responding to attacks from his rivals.
“Merely characterising every one of [the] defendant’s postings as a response to a ‘political attack’ does not make them so,” the judge wrote.
Judge Merchan also suggested he would like the option to punish Mr Trump with a fine of up to $150,000 per violation as opposed to a prison sentence, but this is not an option under judicial law. Criminal contempt is only punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or by 30 days in prison for each violation.
He said in such cases it would be “preferable” to impose a fine “more commensurate with the wealth of the contemnor”, such as a fine of up to $150,000 per violation.
Mr Trump was ordered to remove the seven offending posts from his Truth Social account and two posts from his campaign website by the afternoon. Another hearing on further alleged violations will be held on Wednesday.
Yesterday, the jury heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated hush money deals with Ms Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model.
He said Ms McDougal’s alleged sexual affair with Mr Trump had lasted “months if not more”.
The jury was shown several text message exchanges from 2016 between Mr Davidson and Dylan Howard, the editor of the National Enquirer, while they were negotiating the deal to buy Ms McDougal’s story during Mr Trump’s presidential campaign.
“I have a blockbuster Trump story,” Mr Davidson wrote to Mr Howard. The journalist replied: “Talk 1st thing. I will get you more than ANYONE for it. You know why.”
In later messages, Mr Davidson asked for more than $1 million for the rights to Ms McDougal’s story, but Mr Howard shot him down, saying he was thinking “more hundreds than millions”.
“Throw in an ambassadorship for me. I’m thinking Isle of Man,” Mr Davidson said in another message, which he read to the courtroom.
The lawyer said this was a “joke” in reference to Mr Trump’s campaign “that somehow if Karen did this deal … that it would help Donald Trump’s candidacy”
During his testimony, Mr Davidson said he believed Cohen’s failure to pay the $130,000 for Ms Daniels’ hush money deal was because he was “trying to kick the can down the road until after the election.”
Mr Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to Ms Daniels in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter she claimed she had with him in 2006.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies sexual encounters with Ms Daniels and Ms McDougal.
The trial continues.
