Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Former President Donald Trump was fined $9,000 by Judge Juan Merchan after the judge chastised the vociferous speech of the presumptive Republican nominee for President. Because the order was very clear and Trump couldn’t seem to follow it, Merchan said if the violations continue he would consider putting Trump in jail. Trump responded predictably afterward by claiming the country was “going to hell.”
Trump was held in criminal contempt for violating an order that stymies what he can say about people involved in the case. In all, Judge Merchan said Trump violated the order a total of nine times, for a $1,000 fine each. The gag order includes jurors and witnesses in the trial.
Even the judge seemed to understand that the fines were little in comparison to Trump’s total wealth, and that Trump might just continue to say what he wants over on Truth Social regardless of the consequences. Because of this, Merchan said he would change tactics with an “incarceratory punishment … if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances.”
The specific language of the order is meant to stop Trump from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding,” as well as “public statements” about a juror, prospective or otherwise.
Trump was ordered to remove the offending posts by 2:15 PM, which he did. Seven of the posts came from Truth Social and two were from his campaign website. The thing is, the more Trump is persecuted, or seemingly persecuted, his base gets fired up and he makes a ton of money from campaign contributions.
For example, when he took a mugshot last year, it sparked a fundraising goldmine for Trump. Some T-shirts had the slogan “Never Surrender” under a photo of the former president, even though he was surrendering to take the picture. Trump also knows that if he’s thrown in jail it will make him look more sympathetic, and may even help his campaign.
Unsurprisingly, Trump addressed the public in a defiant and fiery speech that chastised the way he feels he’s being treated. He later added on to it when he got back to Mar a Lago. Because he can’t say anything about the judge or the jurors or pretty much anyone in the trial, Trump set his sights on his favorite targets: The Bidens, and that laptop:
“The FBI and Department of Justice in collusion with Twitter and Facebook in order not to say anything bad about the Hunter Biden laptop from hell, which exposes the Biden family as criminals and which, according to the pollsters would have made a 17 point difference in the election result, we needed a lot less than that, 16.9, it would have been in our favour because our country is going to hell.”
He went on to say that he “never thought this could happen” in America and that the “only crime” he committed was “fearlessly” defending America from people who “seek to destroy it.”
“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign. Remember that? They attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations,” Trump whined. Trump loves playing the victim and a judge restricting what he can say, whether it makes sense or not, is like handing Trump a million dollars in fundraising money. Say what you will, the man knows how to manipulate the news in his favor.
Positioning himself as a free speech advocate as opposed to a whiny man child who’s mad he can’t get his way unfortunately works very well for the former president.
He then started listing things like Russia, Ukraine and the “Impeachment hoax number one [and] number two.” He brought up the “illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar a Lago [and the] lying to the Pfizer courts. The FBI and DOJ relentlessly pursuing Republicans, the unconstitutional changes to election laws by not getting approvals from state legislators, the millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes and all caught on government cameras.”
The trials centers around an alleged “hush money” payment Trump sent to former porn actress Stormy Daniels through his “fixer” Michael Cohen. He’s pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The trial is expected to continue for several weeks.