Wednesday, May 1, 2024 - The judge overseeing Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial fined the former U.S. president $9,000 for contempt of court on Tuesday and said he would consider jailing him if he continued to violate a gag order.
In a written order, Justice Juan Merchan said the fine may
not be enough to serve as a deterrent for the wealthy
businessman-turned-politician and lamented he did not have the authority to
impose a higher penalty.
"Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not
tolerate willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and
appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose
an incarceratory punishment," Merchan wrote.
Merchan had imposed the gag order to
prevent Trump from criticizing witnesses and others involved in the
case.
The fine, $1,000 for each of nine online statements that
Merchan said violated the order -- was just short of the $10,000 penalty that
prosecutors had requested for posts that insulted likely witnesses and
questioned the impartiality of the jury.
Merchan will consider whether to impose further fines for
other statements at a hearing on Thursday.
The judge also ordered Trump to remove the statements from
his Truth Social account and his campaign website by 2:15 p.m.
Trump has argued that the gag order violates his free speech
rights, and his lawyer Todd Blanche told Merchan last week that the statements
at issue were responses to political attacks.
Merchan noted that Blanche was unable to provide any
evidence that the expected witnesses had attacked Trump before he insulted
them.
The $9,000 fine, due by Friday, is a relatively small
penalty for Trump, who has already posted $266.6 million in bonds as he appeals
civil judgments in two other cases.
Imprisonment, however, would be an unprecedented twist in
the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
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