Prosecutors are seeking to have Trump held in contempt for violating the gag order by attacking witnesses Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen.
CNN’s Paula Reid said:
It’s certainly not a surprise that Trump would violate the gag order. We’ve seen him do it before, but the challenge for the judge is, what do you do now? We’re not even half a day into jury selection at the outset of a five to six-week trial. How do you keep Trump within the bounds of his gag order without making him a martyr or disrupting this case? So the prosecutors here said that they were going to seek to have Trump held in contempt for his comments where he referred to, they argue he referred to Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, two key witnesses in this case, as sleazeballs/
And there were two examples right now that we just heard in the past 15 minutes of social media potentially getting Trump in trouble. One prosecutors argue that they want to bring in tweets where it appeared Trump was pressuring Michael Cohen not to flip. And then, of course, these more recent social media posts where he appears to be attacking witnesses in blatant violation of his gag order.
Video:
Prosecutors seek to hold Trump in contempt, "The prosecutors here said that they were going to seek to have Trump held in contempt for his comments where he referred to, they argue he referred to Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, two key witnesses in this case, as sleazeball." pic.twitter.com/mwSNGAJZey
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) April 15, 2024
Of course, Trump is in contempt. The key for Judge Merchan is how he can punish Trump without giving him what he wants is more ammo to claim that the trial is a political exercise? In the civil fraud trial what worked was hitting Trump in the wallet. If the Judge in the criminal case starts imposing big fines on Trump, recent history has shown that he will shut up fast.
Doing nothing isn’t an option. Trump is testing the court, and the court needs to firmly respond or the ex-president will derail the trial.
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