A New York judge ruled Tuesday morning former president Donald Trump repeatedly violated the expansive gag order imposed in his hush-money criminal trial.
Judge Juan Merchan held Trump in contempt for nine violations of the gag order and imposed a $1,000 fine on Trump for each of the violations. Merchan warned Trump he will face jail time if he continues to violate the gag order.
“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,” Merchan said.
Trump received permission to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation next month after Trump claimed Merchan was prohibiting him from doing so. Merchan said he wished he could fine Trump greater sums of money for repeatedly violating the gag order.
At the start of April, Merchan expanded the gag order against Trump to prohibit the former president from criticizing his relatives. Merchan’s daughter is a Democratic strategist whose clients have fundraised off the Trump case. Trump repeatedly criticized her on social media prior to Merchan’s expansion of the gag order.
Testimony resumed on Tuesday as the criminal trial proceeds. Trump is being prosecuted for allegedly falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged affair. Trump has denied Daniels’s allegations they had an affair in 2006.
The prosecution is attempting to portray the Daniels payment as part of a larger conspiracy to tilt the 2016 election and Trump’s defense is arguing it was standard operating procedure. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified last week about the tabloid’s support for Trump during the 2016 election cycle and the “catch-and-kill” process for buying negative stories and shutting them down.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s ex-banker testified that Cohen used a shell company to pay off Daniels. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting Trump for supposedly falsifying the business records to cover-up underlying campaign finance crimes.
The campaign finance violations pursued by Bragg are covered by federal law and the Justice Department declined to pursue a campaign finance case against Trump. Bragg is an elected Democrat and typically takes a soft-on-crime approach to prosecution.
“Everybody knows this trial is a scam,” Trump said at the courtroom. “The judge should be recused and he should recuse himself today.”
He also criticized antisemitism on college campuses as anti-Israel tent encampments sprout up at universities nationwide.