by The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York appeared unconvinced by his attorney’s defense against allegations that the former president repeatedly willfully violated a gag order that prohibits on him to attack witnesses.
Manhattan prosecutors accused Mr. Trump of at least 10 different posts on his Truth Social platform and campaign website that targeted Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels — likely witnesses in the so-called hush money trial underway in a courtroom Manhattan.
Defense attorney Todd Blanche argued that Mr. Trump’s posts were responding to “political” attacks but failed to offer any examples of exactly what Mr. Trump was responding to.
“You haven’t presented anything,” said Judge Juan Merchan of New York, growing increasingly frustrated with Mr. Blanche’s defense, at the end of an hour-long hearing on Tuesday.
“You’re losing all credibility, I’ll tell you that right now,” he said.
Lawyers with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued that Mr. Trump violated a nearly month-old gag order in the case at least 10 times. On the second day of the trial, with jury selection underway, the judge warned Mr. Trump directly against intimidating jurors in his courtroom.
Prosecutors are asking the judge to find Mr. Trump in contempt, fine him $10,000, and order him to remove the offending posts.
They don’t “yet” want jail time.
Judge Merchan will issue a decision at a later time.
On his Truth Social on April 15, Mr. Trump took aim at Mr. Cohen, posting a column from The New York Post who labeled him a “serial petty bugger” who “will try to create a record of misdemeanors against Trump and be an embarrassment to the New York legal system.”
Mr. Trump’s campaign website also posted the headline and linked to the column.
The former president and his campaign shared the post again the next day.
Also, his Truth Social account posted a column with a picture of Mr. Cohen titled “No, Cohen’s Guilty Plea Does Not Prove Trump Dedicated Campaign Finance Offenses.”
On April 17, after seven jurors were sworn in, Mr. Trump’s Truth Social posted a baseless statement by Fox News personality Jesse Watters: “They are arresting undercover Liberal Activists who are standing in front of the Judge to go on the Trump Jury.”
The next morning, Juror No. returned. 2 in court to tell the judge that aspects of her identity across the media prompted friends, colleagues and family members to question her about the case. She was apologized to.
“I do not believe, at this point, that I can be fair and impartial, and allow outside influences to affect my thinking in the courtroom,” she told the judge.
Moments later, Manhattan prosecutors briefed the judge on Mr. Trump’s “disturbing” Truth Social post quoting Watters. “It’s ridiculous, and it has to stop,” Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy told the judge.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Conroy said that Mr. Trump has a habit of saying “whatever he wants to say to get the results he wants.”
Here, he is “knowingly and willfully violating the crystal clear, unequivocal lines drawn up by the court” in the protective order, according to Mr. Conroy.
The court’s gag orders are an “unequivocal mandate” to restrict Mr. Trump’s statements about known witnesses and jurors, prosecutors wrote in a filing last week.
Mr. Trump’s “very public statements” should be viewed “as attempts to intimidate witnesses into silence,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said last week. “This effort continues to this day.”
Mr Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged money scheme to silence an adult film star to prevent the release of potentially compromising stories about Mr Trump and his businesses before the 2016 presidential election.
The gag order in his criminal trial follows gag orders in his civil fraud and federal election interference case, in which prosecutors warned that his social media pulpit could be used to incite attacks.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team described that dynamic in court documents as “part of a pattern, stretching back years, in which people who are publicly targeted” by Mr Trump have been “subjected to harassment, threats and intimidation”.
The former president “seeks to use this known dynamic to his advantage,” the filing said, and “has continued unabated as this and other cases unrelated to the defendant have progressed.”
Gag orders in the New York fraud case bar Mr. Trump, his lawyers and all other parties in the case from contempt of court staff. A state appeals court allowed the orders to stand after court filings showed a wave of credible death threats and abusive messages followed Mr. Trump’s attacks against court employees and others.
An official with the New York court system’s Department of Public Safety wrote in an affidavit last year that the implementation of the limited gag orders had “reduced the number of threats, harassment, and contemptuous messages” in the fraud case. received by the judge and his team.”
The threats against New York Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk Allison Greenfield were “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative,” he wrote.
