Judge Juan Merchan issued the measure in response to prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt of court for publicly insulting witnesses, jurors and people around his case.
Merchan concluded that the former president violated the gag order nine times and fined him one thousand dollars each time (nine thousand dollars in total), but will also hold a new hearing on Thursday to evaluate four other alleged violations of the gag.
“The court will not tolerate continued deliberate violations of its legal orders,” warned the magistrate, who also clarified that Trump could go to prison for his continued non-compliance.
He explained that while he was “well aware of and protective of the defendant’s First Amendment rights,” he would jail him “if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances,” according to local media reports.
In this case – one of the four criminal trials that Trump could face – the former governor and eventual Republican candidate in 2024 was charged with 34 counts of serious crimes associated with the falsification of business records to cover up the hush payment in 2016 to the actress. porn Stormy Daniels, with whom he supposedly had an affair in 2006.
Daniels’ story would have been damaging for Trump in 2016 when he was in his first election campaign to enter the White House.
Keith Davidson, Daniels’ former lawyer, and Karen McDougal, another porn actress who had alleged ties to Trump, were one of the witnesses of the day. The testimony of Gary Farro, a banker who helped Trump’s former cover man, Michael Cohen, opened accounts, through which he would have paid the $130,000 to Daniels, was also heard.
Last week David Pecker, former editor of the National Enquirer tabloid, offered an inside look at the practice of “catch and kill” stories uncomfortable for the then presidential candidate.
This Tuesday, a small group of followers of the former president gathered in front of the Manhattan criminal court convened by the Young Republican Club of New York, who waved flags and wore MAGA (Trumpist Make America Great Again) caps.
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