MANHATTAN (CN) — A New York judge on Tuesday found Donald Trump in contempt of court for violating a gag order on nine occasions after the former president made inflammatory statements about witnesses and jurors in his Manhattan hush-money trial.
“The court finds that the people have met their burden of proof and have demonstrated contempt," New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said in court.
Trump will be fined a total of $9,000 for the violations — $1,000 per offense. Prosecutors have accused Trump of additional violations of the gag order — which was imposed by Merchan to protect prospective witnesses, jurors and court employees from Trump's public statements — that the court has yet to rule on.
In Merchan’s eight-page ruling, made public shortly after announcing his decision in open court, the judge cautioned Trump against continuing to violate court orders with the threat of jail.
“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 wrote.
Trump will have until 2:15 p.m. EST to remove the offending posts from his campaign website and Truth Social account, according to the order. He’ll have until Friday to pay his $9,000 punishment.
Merchan lamented that he couldn’t fine Trump more, however, writing that he is unable to change the $1,000 maximum punishment per offense to serve as a stronger deterrent for such a wealthy offender.
“While $1,000 may suffice in most instances to protect the dignity of the judicial system … it unfortunately will not achieve the desired result in those instances where the contemptor can easily afford such a fine,” Merchan wrote. “It must therefore consider whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment."
Merchan's Tuesday order came after a hearing last week in which prosecutors and Trump’s defense attorneys sparred over whether the former president’s social media activity breached the court’s order.
Prosecutor Chris Conroy said that Trump “violated this order repeatedly and he hasn’t stopped.” He claimed that Trump, through a combination of posts on social media and his campaign website, violated the order a total of 10 times. Several of those posts attacked likely trial witnesses Michael Cohen, Trump's ex-lawyer and “fixer,” and Stormy Daniels, the adult film star to whom Trump supposedly paid hush money to cover up an affair.
“No one is off limits to the defendant and he can attack and seek to intimidate anyone he wants to in service to himself,” Conroy said Tuesday.
That included jurors, Conroy said, chiding Trump for sharing a doctored quote from Fox News’ Jesse Watters about “undercover liberal activists lying to the judge in order to get onto the Trump jury.”
Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said that Trump’s replies are political in nature, and thus he hadn’t violated the gag order.
“There was absolutely no willful violation of the gag order,” argued Blanche, later adding that Trump “is allowed to respond to political attacks.”
But Merchan seemed unconvinced when Blanche repeatedly failed to pull up any of those “political attacks” that Trump was supposedly responding to.
“You have presented nothing,” Merchan said. “I have asked you eight or nine times to show me the exact posts that he was responding to, and you have been unable to do that even once.”
Blanche pleaded with the judge not to hold Trump in contempt, telling him that the former president is “being very careful” and “trying to comply” with the court’s order. Merchan didn’t buy it.
“Mr. Blanche, you are losing all credibility,” the judge said. “I have to tell you that right now. You are losing all credibility with the court.”
Trump is standing trial on charges that he falsified business records to cover up hush money paid to Daniels, a move that prosecutors claim was part of the broader scheme by Trump to tamper with the 2016 presidential election by killing negative press about his campaign.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the charges against Trump last year, accusing him of paying Daniels to cover up an extramarital affair. The former president pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts of falsifying business records and denied ever having a relationship with Daniels.
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