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.”
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.
And although there will be short-term pain with the MAGA folks committing terrorist acts in the name of Trump, long term it would hurt the movement.
Say Trump is thrown into prison for life tomorrow. Who leads the MAGA movement towards their goals? Who even tells them what their goals are? Rob DeSantis? At one point, maybe, but now it isn’t likely. Don Jr? Perhaps but he’s not his father. Vivek Ramaswamy? Maybe, but he doesn’t have the support.
The most likely outcome would be that MAGA fractures. You’d have Don Jr MAGA, DeSantis MAGA, Vivek MAGA, etc. Each MAGA group would insist that THEY are the successor to Trump MAGA and would fight amongst themselves to prove who is the true Scotsman MAGAman. The movement would be weakened as a result.
The keyword there is “violent”.
If they were just rambling on on Trump’s twitter-knockoff, then I’d agree with you. But we’ve seen January 6, along with several examples of lone wolves willing to act on their own. There’s a reason why virtually everybody involved with these cases have extra security detail and why these courtrooms continually go into virtual lockdown every time new charges are brought against Trump.
They might be idiots, but their bullets do just as much damage.
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).
Ah, thats right.
Well, in that case its extra going to be a bad hand for Trump, I guess.
Everytime the Judge extends him an olive branch to shut the fuck up and Trump proceeds to double down on his rhetoric, I imagine the Judge is bumping up the amount owed he has in his head already as the trial continues.
Like it’s absolutely wild when you have this judge as the sole delegate as to just how hard you are going to get dinged, and you decide “ah yeah lets talk shit about this person”
Thats… not going to go well at all… lol
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 problem is enforcement. We both know that Trump wouldn’t be able to go 5 minutes without violating it. But then what?
Jail him? Congratulations, you made him a martyr. His poll numbers are going to skyrocket and his die-hard followers are going to interpret it as a call to action. You’ve hired a bunch of extra security for yourself , everyone on your team right down to the custodian, and their families, right? There’s a reason why nobody has been willing to do this yet. There’s a reason there are so many reports about lawmakers unwilling to remove Trump from office due to fears of retaliation. There’s also the optics that Trump already spins on the daily about jailing a political opponent, and the fact that he is the leading Republican candidate which, like it or not, is going to give him a lot of leeway as judges are loathed to curtail political speech.
Fine him? Objective reports say that the man has at least $400 million cash on hand. While his business isn’t nearly as valuable as he claims it is, he does have several billion dollars in assets around the world that can be tapped. Any fine would qualify as little more than a rounding error on his taxes, and any attempt to issue a fine that would actually impact him is almost guaranteed to be struck down on appeal as excessive. Fining him in an attempt to curb his behavior would be as effective as telling you I’m going to fine you about $1.79 if you don’t knock it off. The man just got slapped with a $5 million smack for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll, and was right back on the air less than 24 hours later saying even worse stuff. Monetary fines do nothing.
Keep warning him? How many times did your mom say “1…2…Two and a half…” before you realized that there is no 3? Same thing here.
Move the case up early? There are numerous legal, procedural, and logistical issues that would make this a non-starter. Numerous talking heads have written this off as an empty threat that would be impossible to actually enact, while giving Trump’s legal team grounds for appeal.
And before anyone says “So what are we supposed to do with him then? Just let him keep doing what he wants with impunity?”…that’s the exact question our entire judicial system is currently tasked with answering, and nobody seems to have come up with one yet. How do you handle someone who is hellbent on doing what he wants, but also has the resources and ability to force people to back down out of legitimate fear of retribution to themselves, their associates, and their families?
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
There’s a (ridiculous) law excempting lies told by politicians on the floor of Congress
You mean the Constitution’s speech and debate clause?
