This was the dilemma that Judge Juan M. Merchan posed in the New York court: either you shut up or go to jail.
Former President Donald Trump, at the beginning of the third week of his criminal trial in the case of porn actress Stormy Daniels, was punished with a fine of $9,000 for violating the gag order that prohibits him from publicly threatening and insulting witnesses. prosecutors and jurors.
The magistrate, who presides over the oral hearing, imposed this punishment for the repeated violations of that warning that the accused has made in his statements and messages posted on his social network, Truth Social, as well as on his campaign website as a Republican candidate. to the White House in the November elections.
Any citizen – including Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and now the prosecution's main witness – will think that this fine is irrelevant, nothing more than a tip, pure change, for someone who boasts of being a multimillionaire.
But there is a second part to the punishment. The judge warned that he will impose “a prison sentence” if Trump continues to violate the gag order that has been imposed on him on this matter.
It took a while, as if they had already taken it for granted, for his team to send a response email on behalf of the leader. “Trump breaking news: Corrupt Democratic judge punishes me for contempt.”
In the message he maintained that everything is an electoral tactic. “They want my silence. “They want to bleed me dry and silence me, but I will never stop fighting for you,” she explained. He insisted, as always without any evidence, that this is a setup by President Joe Biden, and his next rival, and took the opportunity to ask for a campaign financial contribution.
The judge excluded himself from the gag order, which is why Trump continued to attack the magistrate.
Merchán ordered him to remove seven offensive posts from his social network and two others on his campaign website. He had until 2:15 p.m. this Tuesday. “The order is designed strictly to prevent risk to the fair administration of justice and clearly and unequivocally identifies the limited manner in which the defendant's speech is restricted,” the judge wrote in his order.
In his text he clarified that he is “fully aware of, and protective of, the rights that the first amendment” offers to the accused. This amendment refers to freedom of expression. “And this is particularly due to his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.”
The prosecutors prosecuting this historic trial (a president or former president had never sat in the dock for a criminal accusation) denounced last week that Trump was ignoring the order and had even reinforced his attacks on jurors and potential witnesses.
