Donald Trump fined for breaching gag orders, warned jail time a possibility
The US court has been shown texts from people dealing with Donald Trump while the former president has been warned he could face prison time.
At almost the last minute, Donald Trump has complied with a court order to take down nine social media and website posts which a New York judge deemed had broken a gag order in his hush money trial.
Mr Trump was warned that jail time was a possibility if he kept flouting the court’s rules.
In the first day in court this week, jurors also heard about a text declaring “Trump is f****d,” and the pseudonym allegedly given to him by his fixer while negotiating payments to a porn star.
On Tuesday, the former US President was reprimanded by Judge Juan Merchan, fined for contempt of court and warned he could face “incarceration” for repeatedly breaking his gag order.
He was told at 9.30am on Tuesday (11.30pm AEST) that he had to remove seven posts from his Truth Social social media account and two from a website by 2.15pm that day. Thirty minutes before the deadline came, the posts were gone.
But Mr Trump was not happy, firing off a new post railing against the judge.
“The Judge has taken away my constitutional right to FREE SPEECH”. He added that Justice Merchan was “rigging the presidential 2024 election”.
The judge had specifically said Mr Trump can criticise him all he likes.
Possible jail time
The gag order prevented Mr Trump from maligning witnesses or jurors in the case where he is accused of covering up $200,000 ($US130,000) of payments to porn star, Stormy Daniels. There were concerns Mr Trump’s comments could derail the case.
Mr Trump has several times commented on Ms Daniels and his one time fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen as well as the jury selection process.
On Tuesday (US time), Judge Merchan said Mr Trump has violated that order on nine occasions – seven times on his own social media account and two posts on his website.
He was fined $1539 ($US1000) per violation for a total penalty of $13,856 ($US9000).
That may be small change for a rich man, but Justice Merchan warned Mr Trump it was just the lowest rung of penalty available. Jail time could beckon.
“Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate continued wilful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” he wrote in a judgement issued before court sat for the day on Tuesday.
In his decision, the judge called out a social media post which purported to quote Fox News host Jesse Watters. But the judge said Mr Trump had changed Watters’ words in the post.
“Mr Watters uttered a statement which Defendant altered, placed in quotes, attributed to Mr Watters and posted.
“The purpose being to call into question the legitimacy of the jury selection process in this case.”
That, he said, was a “clear violation,” of the order.
‘Tenuous’
At a hearing last week, Mr Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche argued that his client’s social media posts were in response to ”attacks” and therefore were allowed under the gag order.
Judge Merchan asked Mr Trump’s lawyer to indicate which specific “political attacks” from Mr Cohen and Ms Daniels he was referring too. But Mr Blanche seemed unable to find a comment or post from either that might warrant a response.
The judge’s decision stated that while there was a “tenuous” argument that one post was in response to an attack – and therefore allowable – the rest were not.
“To allow such attacks upon protected witnesses with blanket assertions that they are all responses to ‘political attacks’ would be an exception that swallowed the rule,” Justice Merchan said in the ruling.
‘Trump is f****d’
The court on Tuesday heard of some colourful texts between Keith Davidson, the former lawyer for Ms Daniels and another woman who claims she had an affair with Mr Trump, and then National Enquirer editor Dylan Thomas.
Jurors have been told the National Enquirer tabloid bought the exclusive rights to stories that could damage Mr Trump in the run up to the 2016 US election, with money from the presidential candidate, with the intention of never publishing them thereby protecting Mr Trump.
The texts came as Mr Davidson and Mr Howard were discussing the infamous Access Hollywood recording where Mr Trump spoke salaciously about women he wanted to sleep with.
“Trump is f****d,” Mr Davidson was said to have texted Mr Howard when the tape came out.
“Wave the white flag. It’s over people!” Mr Howard responded.
Mr Davidson said at the time that things “could get a lot worse,” for Mr Trump if the Stormy Daniels affair story emerged after the Access Hollywood tape.
Mr Trump would, of course, go onto win the 2016 presidential election.
The court was also told that Mr Trump’s lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen also used pseudonyms to denote Mr Trump and Ms Daniels in documentation so as to not draw attention to their identities.
Mr Trump was known as “David Dennison,” and Ms Daniels as “Peggy Peterson”.
Mr Davidson said that that getting payment for the Stormy Daniels deal was difficult.
After no funds appeared by a set deadline, Ms Daniels said she might cancel the contract and take the story elsewhere which could have seen the allegations emerge weeks out from the 2016 election.
Mr Davidson said Mr Cohen came up with multiple reasons why the money had not be transferred – from IT systems being “all f****d up” to the “secret service”.
Eventually, Mr Davidson claimed, Mr Cohen said: “God damn it, I’ll just do it myself”.
That suggested Mr Cohen stumped up the funds, at least initially, for the Daniels’ story rather than Mr Trump.
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