Yes, he means it. I know many people will be frustrated that he hasn't thrown Trump in jail already, but this seems like the sort of progression I'd expect, and IMO we reached the stage where the judge is willing to jail Trump pretty quickly
I hope the judge understands that he would make so many people happy if he did put Trump in jail. And you know what? People need a little bit of joy in 2024. Egg creams only go so far.
My read is that we have a Defendant who has been threatened many times, and no longer believes the consequences are real. I have seen this variety of narcissism, I’m remembering one murder defendant in particular. They are outraged when the consequences actually happen. I guess we will see.
If last week he got fined a larger amount of money and was also threatened with jail for the same thing, why is this week a progression and why do we know he is serious? What to make of his “the last thing I want is to put you in jail” comment?
Not trying to be contrarian, trying to understand.
In both cases the judge fined Trump $1,000 per violation—that's the statutory max. In the last order, the judge wrote in the abstract that he must consider *whether* jail might be necessary. In this order, he writes that fines aren't working and suggests jail *will* be necessary in the future.
This is how a good smart judge who operates in the real world sets things up: proceeding incrementally with lots of warnings. If Trump violates it again, Merchan can put him in jail and know he did everything he could to bulletproof the order on appeal.
Enh, I have more faith that Merchan will play it right than some others, but after Engoron kept toeing new lines and the outright and obvious corruption of Cannon, I can totally understand the frustration and lack of trust.
I just think that if youre going to jail Trump for contempt, doing everything you can to make sure you don’t get overturned on appeal is Good, Actually.
Oh, I agree. But I can understand why people are starting to despair of ever seeing justice, because of all the actual ways the federal courts actually are working to deny it.
I hope you are correct.
However, I am often reminded of the words of a wise philosopher: "Hope in one hand, crap in the other, and see which fills up first."
Until he's literally in a cell, I will not relax.
I'm afraid that even if he gets jailed for a day or two for a gag-order violation, that will be very unpleasant for him but not actually a game-changer
I don't disagree, but I will point out that the judge does seem to be impacting TFG's behavior (no gag-order-breaking comments about jury and no no-Cohen comments in about a week?)
I envision them coming up with a solution where the secret service locks him down somewhere that’s not a jail but that he doesn’t have access to phones, computers, etc. for the duration of the trial.
I've considered that, but I have no idea if it's legal. Contrary to Trump's bloviations, judges can't just make up punishments. And if the judge tries anything not explicitly mentioned in law, everything stops while the appeals go on.
Interesting take. I know there are various versions of home confinement with angle bracelets and stuff. I don’t know the degree to which judges decide the terms of such arrangements.
If he is jailed, when the Marshalls take him into custody, he’ll be processed like any other prisoner. I think that means Trump will have to take a drug test. Does anyone think he’ll pass? Is staying clean a condition of his bond?
I'm exceptionally doubtful since this is the 2nd warning after the judge already complained that $1k was a meaninglessly small amount
just another day of trump getting away with blatant actions that would ruin your or my life almost entirely
"Because the offensive statement was made prior to this Court's decision of April 30", in other words, BEFORE the warning of possible jail time was issued.
These violations came before that ruling where he threatened jail. Remember, the prosecutors did not ask for jail.
It is frustrating from the outside where we sit hitting refresh, but the rule of law is not what we want to happen when we want it.
It is slow, and methodical, and intentionally so.
Hmm. Would 30 days cover the rest of the trial? And would J. Merchan go that far? He seems to understand that T is in the br'er rabbit role here, and he needs to guard against being punked.
Otherwise, when T's released, every camera in America will be there to greet him, "free at last." smdh.
Much as 'equal justice' should happen / should already have happened, its really better if it doesn't. It would create such a firestorm. It may be what has to be done, but... omg what a mess. He's done so much damage already.
Doesn't mean it. Trump won't go to jail unless Trump tweets out a bounty on someone's head. Marchan is aware that any jail time will vindicate Trump in his supporters' eyes and leave Marchan and his courtroom open for horrific violent retaliations. He's afraid and probably justifiably so.
