Trump faces new contempt of court charges

Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York resumed Thursday with a familiar scenario between prosecutors and the former president's defense lawyers over whether he violated a silence order barring him from attacking witnesses and jurors in the case.

On Tuesday, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ruled that Trump had violated the silence order nine times, found him in contempt of court and fined him $9,000, a a pittance for a billionaire like Trump, as Merchan acknowledged in his order.

The judge, after a 40-minute hearing, did not immediately rule on four other statements made by Trump. Among them were on-camera comments last week in which Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, disparaged the 12 jurors hearing the case as Democrats deciding his fate.

Prosecutor Christopher Conroy told Merchan: “The defendant thinks the rules should be different for him.

Trump's defense attorney, Todd Blanche, suggested that Trump should answer reporters' questions about the trial in a hallway outside the courtroom, but Merchan rejected Blanche's assertion.

It was your client who walked into that waiting area, stood in front of the press and started talking, Merchan said. It wasn't the press that spoke to him. He spoke to the press. He didn't need to go in that direction.

Blanche then acknowledged that no one was forcing Trump to speak to reporters, drawing laughter in an overflow room where spectators are watching the trial on closed-circuit television.

Additionally, Trump attacked a key potential witness in the case, Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and political fixer who turned against him. Cohen, although he agreed at one point to forgo further attacks on Trump, did not stop.

As a result, Merchan suggested he might ease his restrictions preventing Trump from attacking Cohen in return.

The judge also didn't seem particularly concerned that Trump made a favorable comment outside the courtroom about former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who testified last week about how of whom he had agreed, at Trump's request, to help him by any means possible to win the White House. in the 2016 elections.

As it stands, any comments about witnesses are prohibited under the gag order.

In Tuesday's order, Merchan sternly warned Trump that if he continued to ignore his mid-trial rulings, he could be imprisoned.

The defendant is hereby put on notice that the Court will not tolerate continued violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate in the circumstances, it will impose a term of imprisonment, Merchan said in an eight-page decision.

Pecker said his grocery tabloid paid $150,000 for the rights to a claim by Karen McDougal, former Playboy Playmate of the Year, that she had a months-long affair with Trump, but that it was a story Pecker had no intention of publishing in the Inquirer.

After Merchan's contempt of court ruling on Tuesday, Trump posted a call for campaign donations on his campaign website, saying the Democratic judge had just ruled against me.

The gag order does not prohibit the 45th US president from attacking Merchan.

Trump, in the first-ever trial of a former US president, is accused of falsifying his business records to hide a secret $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide his claim of a tryst from a night with Trump in 2006. say the payment was intended to hide information from voters just before the 2016 election.

Trump has denied the two women's allegations of an affair with him as well as all 34 charges in the New York case.

Even though Merchan ruled against Trump in the first contempt case, the judge warned Cohen and Daniels against their provocative public posts against Trump on social media.

When testimony resumed on the 10th day of what could be a six-week trial, prosecutors again questioned Daniels' lawyer, Keith Davidson, who negotiated his hush payment.

Davidson had previously testified about his contentious dealings with Cohen while negotiating the payments with Daniels and McDougal and said the Trump aide appeared at one point to back down from making the Daniels deal, just before the election.

Ultimately, Cohen made the payment to his personal home equity line of credit and was repaid by Trump in 2017 after becoming president.

The reimbursements to Cohen are at the center of criminal charges against the 77-year-old former president, who has said the payments to Cohen were for legal work and not hush money paid to Daniels.

Trump's defense lawyers argue that Cohen, in turning on Trump, is seeking revenge on his former boss and that he alone paid Daniels, and that Trump was not involved. Cohen was convicted of campaign finance violations related to paying hush money to Daniels and other offenses. He served 13 months in federal prison and another year and a half on home detention.

Knowing how Trump's lawyers will attack Cohen during his testimony, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass obtained extensive testimony from Davidson about how unstable Cohen might be and possible motives for him to seek revenge on Trump.

In testimony, Davidson said he received a phone call from Cohen in December 2016, after Trump became president.

According to Davidson, Cohen said he was discouraged, quoting him as saying, “I can't believe I'm not going to Washington,” an acknowledgment that Trump had not asked him to join his new administration.

Under cross-examination by Trump defense attorney Emil Bove, Davidson said of Cohen: “I thought he was going to kill himself. Bove suggested that Cohen wanted to be appointed to a high-ranking position, even U.S. attorney general.

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