It’s only a matter of time before Donald Trump crosses the line (again).
Donald Trump on Wednesday launched fresh vitriol against the judge and prosecuting attorney in his New York business fraud trial, carefully skirting a gag order imposed on him just a day prior.
Trump tried Tuesday to bully a court clerk, sharing false conspiracies about her as well as her personal information. Presiding Judge Arthur Engoron issued a gag order later that day prohibiting all parties involved in the case from publicly discussing court staff.
While Trump avoided mentioning court staff on Wednesday, he went all out with attacks against Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“This is election interference. They made up a fake case, these fraudulent people,” Trump told reporters. “And the judge already knows what he’s gonna do. He’s a Democrat judge. In all fairness to him, he has no choice.… He’s run by the Democrats.”
Yeah. That is text book contempt of court, you can throw people in jail or give a fine for that.
edit: Like that is the whole point of the gag order. Stop talking about this or face consequences upon insisting on continuing. Without the face consequences part the gag order is meaningless plea for good behavior. You can do that personally just with "would you please not talk about this" by the judge. When one is issuing gag the whole point is "we don't believe you keep mouth shut on your own accord so we have to enforce it with pain of punishment".
I would love to see him in jail for this, but hear me out: I want to see him lose everything in New York first… and he didn’t actually break the gag order. Which makes me want to gag saying it, but here we are.
Trump’s strategy his entire life has been trying to find ways to flout the rules and make money. He thinks he’s “clever” by not paying people he owes and constantly fucking people over; that he’s a good businessman despite all the failures and obvious fraud.
The gag order specifically states that Trump can’t talk about the Judge’s staff. So he goes around that by going back to attacking the judge himself and the Letitia James… who aren’t covered by any gag order because they’re public officials, not court staff. Trump is once again just toeing the line of what could get him in actual trouble. He is genuinely a piece of shit.
All that being said, keep in mind that that the overall punishment is currently happening. It may not be Trump in jail, ever, because he’s a turd no one can seem to flush. But just, for a second, imagine a New York without the word Trump plastered on it. It will eat him alive for the rest of his life. And that’s not all that’s happening to him; I don’t think the rest of his life is going to be super fun for him. He seems miserable.
The dude desperately wanted to be accepted by New York’s elite; his dad owned shitty buildings in Queens (I think, someone can correct me if I’m wrong) so when Donald made it to Manhattan — where the ultra-wealthy live — it was huge for his ego. He’s been riding that ever since, except that high society still knows he’s dumb trash. His insecurity shows in how he acts, what he says, and how he talks about everything being so luxurious. He’s desperate to be accepted by the old world elite, but they despise him.
And now they’re scrubbing his entire legacy from New York. Not because they hate him, but because he’s very obviously a fraud. I don’t know if there could be a more direct rebuke to his actual “life’s work.” They’re erasing him.
The judge taking away the phone from Trump and smashing it with a hammer. Only for Trump to summon a new phone from his pocket. Then the judge smashing that phone as well, only for Trump to keep summoning new phones ad infinitum as the judge keeps smashing them like some sort of Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Like that is the whole point of the gag order. Stop talking about this or face consequences upon insisting on continuing. Without the face consequences part the gag order is meaningless plea for good behavior.
He very carefully tiptoed around the gag order though. The order was to not talk about X, so he talked about Y and Z that were related to, but not included in X. Because he's going to rant about the case in whatever way he technically can, because that's what Trump does. Trump couldn't stop talking in public for 5 minutes on a bet, he has the verbal version of IBS.
If I could see a single consequence for anything he's done beyond the inconvenience of having to appear in court to continue denying he's done anything wrong prior to the 2024 election, it would make me so happy.
Considering he openly admitted that he was going to hide his money in offshore accounts so the victims won't get it, he's still spouting conspiracy nonsense on infowars, and has maintained exactly the same lifestyle he had before, I'd say it went pretty well for him.
People severely overestimate the impact that these cases have had against people like Alex Jones and Steve Bannon. They may have had some bumps in the road, and a bunch of lawyers made a bunch of money. But in the end, these guys are still able to keep on keeping on.
What a trainwreck of a man. He could have just let SpaceX do it's thing and pretend he was the super tech genius behind it and be loved for life. In a way I am glad, him messing around with Twatter and Tesla keeps him distracted from breaking the one smart investment he ever made.
I don't know if it'd be considered legal under the constitution, but someone needs to issue a blanket gag order that basically says he's not allowed to say anything to the public, directly or indirectly, until after his trials are over. Otherwise he's going to keep finding loopholes that allow him to get past the gag order.
That would be a First Amendment violation, because it would also prohibit legal speech. The only way he's not able to reach the public is if he's in jail.
If he goes to jail - a justifiable sentence for continually violating gag orders - his minions will call that a First Amendment "Deep State" thing. And they might not be far from the truth.
It's going to be really bad, the more he threatens people. It's going to even worse if he goes to jail.
Edit: I wanted to add, "The only way he stops sending his threats is if he dies," but that's not even true.
If he dies of natural causes, or an accident, or by murder - doesn't matter. His followers will blame their enemies, and they will act. There is no way this all ends with anything but violence. The only question is when, and how much.
Thing is... they're gonna do what pumped up hate-fueled idiots always do, no matter how much factual reality differs from their oh-so-sacred claims. It doesn't matter if this asshat lands in jail or at the bottom of an empty elevator shaft. They're going to erupt in violence and will need to be put down in kind.
Just, yank the fuckin' bandaid already, get this over with, FFS. Waiting doesn't make it better for anyone.
The question is this: Sometimes its pretty solid to issue repeated gag orders (in front of the watching jury), and everyday have to drag the defendant up and once again talk about how they violated the gag order in spirit and have to get even further sanctioned... while the whole jury sits and watches it.
Everytime it happens the jury becomes further pitted against the asshole who is wasting their time.
Yeah but there’s no jury in the New York civil fraud case. It’s just the judge, and he’s already ruled against Trump (on the most important claim, there are others), the remaining trial is just to see what the damages will be (and to determine the status of the other claims).
Of all the types of speech protected by the courts, none is more highly valued than political speech. So there's no way in hell a court would try to impose blanket silence on a political candidate.
Except for the fact that his "political speech" consists of threats and slander, both of which are illegal.
There's a (ridiculous) law excempting lies told by politicians on the floor of Congress, but no such thing for someone who's not even in public office committing stochastic terrorism almost every day
Yeah, no, that is a direct violation of his 1st amendment rights. He knows he's playing catch me if you can with the court and his mouth because the court can only gag very narrowly defined speech. For instance the court could say he can't talk about pickles, so he talks about cucumbers soaked in a brine. The court tells him he cannot talk about cucumbers soaked in a brine. So he talks about a green vegetable roughly the size of a pickling cucumber that you then put into a mixture that contains seasonings, vinegar, etc. Will he eventually run out of ways to describe a pickle? Sure, but he'll have wasted shitloads of the judge's time and distracted from what was actually happening in court. And it's working. Do you know anything about what has been presented so far in the case? You probably don't because those articles don't bring the clicks and views like stories about his latest shenanigans on social media.
The judges in each case can issue a gag order against discussing anything and anyone pertaining to the case in public. That would be bulletproof and also constitutional.
The combination of the ridiculous spray tan on his face with the crazy bleaching of his teeth make him really hard to look at. Plus he's a garbage human being so reading stories about him is not at the top of my list already.
I haven't been able to find the exact text of the order. When speaking about it, the judge kept referencing "members of my court staff" and a reasonable argument could be made that that did not include the actual judge.
Let’s just hope the judge can clamp down on Trump over all this. Also when I normally say “don’t threaten anybody in my family” most people wouldn’t misunderstand it as “but you can threaten me, totally fine” but I wouldn’t be surprised if trump asked his staff who he could lash out at while staying within the gag order and this is what he came up with.
So is this when he gets locked up for contempt of court? What consequences does he face for violating the gag order? If nothing, it's just business as usual...
The cornered coward will lash out at everyone and no doubt would back and suggest/support an armed civilian conflict if it meant delaying his inevitable upcoming demise