Justice Juan M. Merchan, the judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, held the 2020 election loser in contempt today, fining the disgraced former president $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order.
“The court finds the people have met their burden of proof and have demonstrated contempt. Mr. Trump is fined $1,000 on each of those two,” said Merchan in a written decision, referring to gag order violations.
Merchan admonished Trump that he could go to jail if he continued to attack witnesses and jurors, who will decide if he is guilty of falsifying records related to payoff funds transferred to cover up a sex scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels.
“The court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders,” said Merchan, who also warned that while he was “keenly aware of, and protective of, defendant’s First Amendment rights,” Trump would be sent to jail “if necessary and appropriate.”
Merchan ruled that Trump flouted the gag order by making nine public statements on social media and on his campaign website in which he attacked witnesses and the jury. He ordered Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, to remove the posts by Tuesday afternoon as the historic criminal trial entered its third week.
The judge’s ruling and admonition came one week after a fiery hearing in which prosecutors had argued that Trump’s statements threatened the trial.
The trial’s third witness — Gary Farro, a banker who worked with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen — has resumed testifying. Prosecutors had not said in open court by the close of Friday’s session who the next witness would be after Farro.
Last week, the trial was largely dominated by testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
Former Trump executive assistant of three decades Rhona Graff also briefly took the stand, after she recoiled from Trump when he tried to shake her hand in front of jurors during his hush money trial.
Graff’s tenure as Trump’s gatekeeper started in 1987 and ended in 2021. She testified that she added the contacts for Daniels and ex-Playboy playmate Karen McDougal to the Trump Organization’s computer system.
Manhattan prosecutors allege that both Daniels and McDougal received six-figure hush money payments to keep their sexual affairs with Trump secret in the final weeks of the 2016 election campaign. It’s alleged Trump, with the help of his former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen, cooked up a scheme that involved illegally falsifying business records to hide the payments to manipulate the outcome of the election.