Gag Order Hearing Is Heated as Judge Considers Citing Trump for Contempt
Justice Juan M. Merchan, overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, warned the former president’s lawyer that he was losing credibility.
“The judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s trial in Manhattan held a fiery hearing on Tuesday about whether to find Mr. Trump in criminal contempt for repeatedly violating the provisions of a gag order.
While the judge, Juan M. Merchan, did not issue an immediate ruling, he engaged in a heated back-and-forth with one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, scolding him for his failure to offer any facts in his defense of the former president.
“You’ve presented nothing,” Justice Merchan told the lawyer, Todd Blanche, adding soon after: “You’re losing all credibility with the court.”
Justice Merchan’s rebuke came moments after prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office had complained that Mr. Trump willfully violated the gag order by making 10 public statements on social media and on his campaign website that attacked two likely witnesses and the jury.
The prosecutors pointed to Mr. Trump’s attacks on Michael Cohen, a lawyer who had helped Mr. Trump arrange hush payments to a porn star to stop her from speaking about a sexual encounter she said she had had with Mr. Trump. The prosecutors also told Judge Merchan that a post Mr. Trump had made going after the woman, Stormy Daniels, violated the gag order.
Prosecutors flagged another post for Justice Merchan, saying it was even more troubling. In it, Mr. Trump had quoted a Fox News commentator, Jesse Watters, denigrating potential jurors in the case as “undercover liberal activists.”
Justice Merchan imposed the order on Mr. Trump in late March, barring him from public statements about any witnesses, prosecutors, jurors or court staff. But within a week, after Mr. Trump had found a loophole in the order and repeatedly attacked the judge’s daughter, Justice Merchan expanded it to cover the relatives of court staff members and relatives of lawyers working on the case.
Christopher Conroy, a prosecutor, told Justice Merchan on Tuesday that Mr. Trump had broken the order “repeatedly and hasn’t stopped.” Mr. Conroy added that the former president had made statements violating it even “right here in the hallway” outside the courtroom.
“He knows what he’s not allowed to do,” Mr. Conroy said of Mr. Trump, “and he does it anyhow.”
Mr. Blanche rejected that argument, telling the judge that Mr. Trump had never willfully violated the order. Mr. Blanche instead tried to paint his client’s statements as legitimate responses to “a barrage of political attacks.”
“Mr. Cohen in particular, and also Ms. Daniels, have ramped up their political attacks and their attacks on him as candidate in the weeks leading up to the trial,” Mr. Blanche said. His argument to Justice Merchan was that Mr. Trump should be allowed to respond.
The judge was skeptical, all but pleading with Mr. Blanche at one point to make a more substantive legal argument.
“I hate to keep coming back to this, but you’re not offering me anything to support your argument,” he said.
Prosecutors have asked Justice Merchan to fine Mr. Trump $1,000 for each of his violations of the gag order. They have also asked the judge to warn Mr. Trump that if he continues to violate the order, he could face jail time.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump. More about Alan Feuer“
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