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(Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Even before voir dire got under way this afternoon, Donald Trump was already trying it with Justice Juan Merchan.
Last month, the court imposed a gag order barring the former president from publicly attacking witnesses, jurors, and lawyers involved in his prosecution for creating false business records to conceal hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump immediately pivoted to attacking Justice Merchan’s daughter, who works for a Democratic communications firm, while his lawyers dummied up recusal motions howling that the daughter’s position posed an insuperable conflict of interest for the court. The judge expanded the order to cover his family members, as well as those of District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whom Trump has also maligned.
Trump proceeded to dip his toes in the contempt pool with several Truth Social posts linking to articles attacking Justice Merchan’s daughter, although he refrained from typing out the vitriol with his own thumbs. And then over the past three days, he appears to have dived right in, with posts attacking his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and Daniels, both of whom are set to testify in this case.
On Saturday, he referred to Cohen as a “disgraced attorney and felon” who has been “prosecuted for LYING” and this morning, even as the trial was underway, he quoted the New York Post, calling him a “serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system.” Previously he quoted Daniels’s former lawyer Michael Avenatti calling her and Daniels sleazebags — in a jailhouse interview, natch.
This morning, in the midst of arguing about Trump’s motion to recuse (denied) and to keep his Tweets out of evidence (denied) and Trump’s power nap (twice), prosecutors announced that they will be moving for contempt based on the above social media posts. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy asked for $1,000 for each infraction, plus an order instructing Trump to delete the offending posts. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche responded that his client was merely “responding to salacious, repeated vehement attacks by these witnesses.”
But while the judge was unimpressed with Trump’s justification for ignoring the clear terms of the gag order, he didn’t seem to feel any particular urgency to address it, setting a hearing date for the 23rd. And even as we type, the first batch of potential jurors is filling out the 42-question jury sheet.
WITCH HUNT … eventually.
People v. Trump [Case Documents via Just Security]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
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