Judge threatens Trump with jail for hush money trial gag order violations

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A judge on Monday delivered a dire warning to Donald Trump: Stop violating the court’s orders, or you will be thrown in jail.

“The last thing I want to do is to put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States, and possibly the next president as well,” Judge Juan Merchan told Trump in Manhattan Supreme Court, where the former president is on trial in a criminal hush money case.

“I do not want to propose a jail sanction,” Merchan said, but “that I will, if necessary.”

The ultimatum came less than a week after the judge held Trump in contempt of court for repeatedly violating his gag order, which bars him from speaking about witnesses, jurors and other parties involved in the trial.

Merchan gave Trump the maximum fine of $1,000 for each of nine violations. The judge on Monday morning delivered a ruling, which he did not read from the bench, about four other alleged gag order violations prosecutors had flagged.

“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent,” Merchan said.

He said he would not hastily take the drastic step of throwing Trump in jail for his continued contempt.

“The magnitude of such a decision is not lost on me,” Merchan said.

“There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for you,” he said. “To take that step would be disruptive to the proceedings.”

“But at the end of the day, I have a  job to do.”

The tense start to the fourth week of the historic trial followed a series of other dramatic developments, including an emotional breakdown on the witness stand by a former top White House aide.

On Friday, former longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks testified for the prosecution under subpoena. She provided an insider’s account of how Trump and his team reacted to damaging news about him on the 2016 presidential campaign trail. This included the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump was caught on tape bragging about sexual misconduct.

“Everyone was just absorbing the shock of it,” Hicks said, describing the immediate aftermath of the tape’s release.

That tape renewed media interest in porn star Stormy Daniels’ little-known account of a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006. For much of the week, the jury heard from a lawyer who helped broker a $130,000 hush money payment for Daniels. That payment is at the center of the prosecution’s case.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a reimbursement to his lawyer for the payment to Daniels. The $130,000 was paid by Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen, less than two weeks before the 2016 election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses Trump of concealing records of the payment to further an illegal scheme to influence the election.

Hicks testified that while she was working in the Trump White House, Trump told her that Cohen had made the payment without Trump’s knowledge in order to protect him, and that he did it “out of the kindness of his own heart.”

Hicks said she thought acting out of pure kindness would be “out of character for Michael.”

She also suggested that Trump was pleased the Daniels story did not come out before the election. “I think Mr. Trump’s opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now, and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election,” she testified.

When Trump’s attorneys began their cross-examination, asking her basic questions about her time at the Trump Organization, Hicks quickly broke down in tears on the witness stand.