Trump fined $9,000 for violating trial gag order, posting about witnesses online
Judge Merchan to hold another hearing on four more counts, warns presidential hopeful further violations may result in incarceration
Donald Trump’s hush money trial resumed Tuesday, with Judge Juan M. Merchan first ruling on prosecutors’ prior request to hold the former United States president in contempt of court over alleged violations of a gag order that bars him from speaking publicly about witnesses and jurors in the case.
Merchan ruled that Trump violated the gag order nine times and fined him $9,000 and instructed him to remove seven “offending posts” from his Truth Social account and two from a campaign website by Tuesday afternoon. He will hold another hearing Thursday on four more alleged violations brought forth by prosecutors.
“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 has argued that the gag order violates his free speech rights, and his lawyer Todd Blanche told Merchan last week that the statements at issue were responses to political attacks.
Merchan noted that Blanche was unable to provide any evidence that the expected witnesses had attacked Trump before he insulted them.
Gary Farro — the prosecution’s third witness and a banker who helped Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen open accounts — returned to the witness stand shortly thereafter to resume his testimony from last week.
Cohen used one such account to buy the silence of porn performer Stormy Daniels, who alleged a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which he denies.
The first week of testimony was the scene-setter for jurors: Manhattan prosecutors portrayed what they say was an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 presidential campaign by burying negative stories.
For his part, the former US president and presumptive Republican nominee has been campaigning in his off-hours, but is required to be in court when it is in session, four days a week.
The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to Cohen. Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of those payments and falsely recorded them as legal expenses.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The case is the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury.
