This morning in Judge Merchan's courtroom, prosecutor Chris Conroy said the Manhattan DA's office was filing a THIRD order to show cause to hold Trump in contempt for 4 additional violations of the gag order in the last 3 days, bringing total to 14.
Under NY law, the court is authorized to impose a fine of up to $1,000 or a jail sentence of up to 30 days or both. The DA's office is asking for a fine of $1,000 for each violating post (so presumably $14,000 now)—plus an admonition that future violations may result in incarceration.
Judge Merchan held a hearing on Trump's gag-order violations on Tuesday. It went as badly as it could have for Trump, but Judge Merchan hasn't yet issued his ruling.
I'm afraid you don't need Johnny Carson to predict how this will turn out.
A nuisance fine, plus a "no, really, stop it or I'll really do something next time".
Do you want a case that's easy to appeal, or one that is insulated, to the extent possible, against appeal? The prosecution clearly is going for the latter.
Is it your claim that defendants that repeatedly and knowingly violate a judge's order in attempts to intimidate witnesses and jurors, who are then jailed for contempt within the limits allowed by statute, generally have strong grounds for appeal?
Or just Trump?
Honestly, don't know how given Merchan is about to give a ruling, Trump keeps violating the order, how* Merchan doesn't put him in jail for a couple of days.
*I mean, I do, but the amount of brazenness here is amazing
Do we know if Merchan likes to stay limited to what prosecutors ask for? Or is it possible that he's considering imposing the jail time the DA's office isn't asking for?
I think it's much, much likelier that Judge Merchan will be cautious during this round and only impose a fine, especially considering that the people Trump is attacking are the less vulnerable of the parties the gag order is designed to protect
I'm not immediately seeing what modifying the conditions of release would accomplish. Judge Merchan already has a more precise tool available to him of up to 30 days in jail for violating the gag order that he hasn't yet used.
My expectation here is that he doesn't want to jump to using that jail option without a warning shot first, modifying conditions of release would circle that threat in bright red hi-vis marker as an intermediate step.
Literally anyone else would be in jail already. =/
I suspect you're right, but I can hope, lol.
I don't even want Merchan to impose any kind of serious sentence. Make Trump spend one night in jail just to prove to Trump that the Court really can do that no matter how much he thinks he's above the law.
Honestly, it seems like a total failure of Merchan to not have his order out before proceedings started today.
He’s going to admonish Trump to knock it off, and, like… that needs to happpen sooner rather than later.
JUST JAIL HIM ALREADY.
Even just for a couple of days. ANY real consequences* would send a message.
*a few thousand dollars isn't a consequence with this guy
