Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 19
The New York judge presiding over Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial threatened the former US president with jail time on Monday if he commits another violation of his gag order.
Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to a porn star just days ahead of his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton.
Judge Juan Merchan held Trump in contempt of court and fined him $1,000 on Monday for a violation of the gag order prohibiting him from publicly attacking witnesses, jurors or court staff and their relatives.
Trump, whose trial is taking place six months ahead of an expected White House rematch with Democrat Joe Biden, was also fined a total of $9,000 last week. But Merchan said these penalties were not serving as a “deterrent” and he would have to consider jail time for further violations.
“At the end of the day I have a job to do and part of that job is to maintain the dignity of the justice system,” the judge said, calling Trump’s defiance a “direct attack on the rule of law.”
Merchan’s ruling came at the start of the third week of testimony in the high-stakes trial of the Republican White House candidate, the first former US president to face criminal charges.
Speaking to reporters after the day’s proceedings, Trump blasted the case as “election interference” by Democrats to keep him off the campaign trail.
“I thought they were going to be finished today and they want two to three more weeks,” he told reporters. He also criticized the gag order. Prosecutors called two witnesses on Monday.
Jeffrey McConney, a Trump Organization executive, walked the jury through the reimbursements to Cohen for the hush money paid to Daniels, saying most of the funds were drawn from Trump’s personal account.
McConney was followed by Deborah Tarasoff of the Trump Organization’s accounts payable department, who was asked about the checks signed by Trump to pay Cohen back.
According to prosecutors, panic over the tape triggered a Trump campaign effort to silence Daniels over her claim of a sexual encounter with the married Trump. Trump denies ever having sex with Daniels.
He also faces charges of illegally storing huge quantities of top-secret documents taken from the White House at his home in Florida.
Source: AFP
