Government

Trump Gets Held In Contempt

First one's (functionally) free. The second one'll cost ya your liberty.

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Jury Selection Continues In Former President Donald Trump’s New York Hush Money Trial

(Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Tick tock, Contemnors!

This morning Justice Juan Merchan held Donald Trump in contempt of court for nine of ten violations of the March 26 gag order in his false business records case. The court fined the former president $1,000 a pop, and ordered him to take down the offending posts before 2:15. Still live as of this writing!

The gag order bars Trump from making statements about jurors or “reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.” Trump immediately vomited out several posts on Truth Social and his campaign website attacking Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, largely by quoting and reposting attacks by conservative commentators. He (and his lawyer Alina Habba) have continued to attack the jurors, too, but that’s a problem for another contempt hearing.

Last week, Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued that it is simply “common sense” that RT’s are not endorsements, and also that Trump is entitled to respond to political attacks by calling a Cohen a “serial perjurer.”

“The issue of ‘reposting’ appears to be a question of first impression,” Justice Merchan wrote this morning. “Lacking legal authority to guide its decision, this Court must, as defense counsel stated at the hearing, rely on common sense.”

Observing that Trump himself has boasted that his posts on Truth Social “SPREAD all over the place, fast and furious. EVERYBODY SEEMS TO GET WHATEVER I HAVE, TO SAY, AND QUICKLY,” the court concluded that the defendant reposted the articles “to maximize viewership and to communicate his stamp of approval” and to “communicate to his audience that he endorses and adopts the posted statement as his own.”

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Justice Merchan noted that Judiciary Law § 751 presents him with just two options for punishment: a fine of $1,000 per violation and/or incarceration.

“It would be preferable if the Court could impose a fine more commensurate with the wealth of the contemnor,” he lamented, observing that $1,000 is functionally zero deterrent for someone with a ten-figure net worth, and so the court might be forced to take that second option if Trump doesn’t knock it off already.

“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 warned.

Trump already has a second contempt hearing scheduled for tomorrow. And as of now, those posts are still up.

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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