It was a few weeks ago when Judge Juan Merchan first imposed a gag order on Donald Trump in his hush-money/falsifying-business-records case. The former president responded soon after by going after the judge’s daughter — publicly and repeatedly — which led to a revised gag order.
The Republican was told he could still talk publicly about much of the case — he rarely stops talking about it — but among other things, the criminal defendant is supposed to refrain from making public statements related to jurors and witnesses.
That proved problematic when the suspected felon used his social media platform to criticize jurors and witnesses.
Local prosecutors urged the judge overseeing the case to hold Trump in contempt. As NBC News reported, that’s precisely what happened.
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.
As my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained, the jurist “also ordered Trump to remove the seven offending posts from his Truth Social account and the two offending posts from his campaign website by 2:15 p.m. Tuesday.”
Team Trump did, in fact, comply ahead of the deadline.
At this point, I imagine some readers are probably thinking, “Wait, $1,000 for each violation is only $9,000. Trump has plenty of money problems, but this won’t create much of a disincentive for him to comply with the court order.”
But it’s not quite that simple. For one thing, Merchan conceded that the fines are modest, but they represent the legal maximum under these circumstances.
For another, this did not represent the entirety of the judge’s pushback: Merchan also warned in his decision that he would not tolerate further violations of the order and said “if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances,” he would impose “an incarceratory punishment” on the defendant.
In other words, if Trump continues to push his luck, he risks the very possibility of going to jail the next time he runs afoul of the gag order. Let’s not forget that it was earlier this month when Trump used his social media platform to declare that it would be a “great honor” to be jailed for violating a gag order. As part of the same boast, the former president compared himself — in apparent seriousness — to Nelson Mandela. We’ll now see whether the presumptive GOP nominee intends to back up this rhetorical chest-thumping with deliberate violations of a judicial gag order. I have a hunch Trump will find it far easier to simply comply. As for the bigger picture, it’s worth pausing to emphasize that while the former president’s jury trial is a long way from being over, it’s now fair to say that Trump has already suffered an important defeat. It’s also history in the making: The Republican is now the first former president in American history to be held in criminal contempt. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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