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.”
For once, let there be consequences
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.
Edited a typo
You’re spot on. And what’s worse (for Trump), is that he wouldn’t even get the proceeds from sales of the properties. If he was forced to sell all the properties and was allowed to keep the money, it would at least add to his bank account total. That’s something he values even more than being loved by the NY elites.
But no, he wouldn’t keep the proceeds and he might actually be fined hundreds of millions of dollars on top of all this. The “Trump is a genius billionaire business man” part of his ego has been seriously wounded and is rapidly deflating.
Now if only Florida weren’t in his pocket, they could access Mar-A-Lago’s value at $1 billion for tax purposes. After all, that’s what Trump said it was worth and he must be telling the truth, right?
I can see it now.
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.
Has there ever been a whiny crybaby like this guy before?
He’s the biggest victim-player in the entire world. Sure is odd how his fans think he’s ultra-masculine just because he’s also an overconfident bully.
Yep. I’ve had a couple relationships with people like that. Most recently, a gf who acted exactly like that… she’d blame all of our problems on me, never take accountability, never acknowledge that her actions or behavior could influence me too, was thrilled to criticize me but if I said anything about her (even very fair things where I shared blame) she’d either change the topic to something irrelevant to criticize me, or clam up or leave and then blame me for finding the conversation frustrating. Expected me to do all the housework, then blamed me for not doing enough. Spent most of her time on social media, blamed me for her not getting work done, was obsessed with things like “221 people wished me happy birthday on facebook!”. Incredibly dysfunctional and infuriating after a while. Not like I’m an expert, but after watching 50 hours of NPD videos on YouTube she ticks all the boxes.
He’s the whiniest. People come up to him. Big, strong men with tears in their eyes. They say “Sir, you whine more than anyone else!”
Alex Jones pretty much pulled the same stunt and we all saw how well that played out for him
Kinda fine so far? As of a couple of weeks ago, he still hadn’t paid a dime to any of the Sandy Hook families because he declared bankruptcy. He’s still spending a bunch of money and still doing Info Wars. It’ll probably catch up to him eventually? I hope? https://apnews.com/article/alex-jones-sandy-hook-shooting-bankruptcy-34192bd7d89ed786f64580682f6ea89e
It’s wild how gentle the courts are with the rich and powerful doing absolutely abhorrent shit on massive scales
But find a joint roach on a poor person unfortunate enough to not have light skin, and they’re near instantly thrown into jail for years and years
I don’t know how anybody can not think that the justice system is broken
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.
Elon Musk kinda comes to mind, but Trump shits all over what Musk has done…
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 wish I could hear from the republican side a reasoning why apparently nobody in their side has the balls to prosecute this obviously criminal person. It’s crazy how far from truth we have become in all sides of the fence. I hope humanity survives to properly analyze the reasons how it came to this.
How it came to this does not require deep analysis. Unchecked conservatism naturally leads to fascism. This has been the case throughout history.
The conservatism in the Democrat party is slightly checked by the progressives, but the Republicans have done nothing at all to check the conservatism in their party. So, now they are a fascist party. Simple.
Conservatism is a plague of oppression and death. It always has been
A useful analysis would go deeper.
Republicans have done nothing at all to check the conservatism in their party
Ok so why haven’t they? And why does so much of the population support the fascists that the Republicans have become?
Ok so why haven’t they?
I would argue because it’s useful to have the circus and distraction, they have things they don’t want to see the light of day, and/or they believe they and their buddies are above the law.
And why does so much of the population support the fascists that the Republicans have become?
Because they’re fed a diet of propaganda over decades that they believe whole heartedly and refuse to hear otherwise no matter what the evidence is. “Republicans aren’t the fascists! Antifa is!”
Yes. The governments of the Soviet Union and the majority of the population were famously socially conservative.
Your disingenuous question reminds me that every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation. Every word.
There are a handful of examples already that we can look back on, Weimar Germany for example…
nobody has the balls
He’ll let them steal what they wanna steal and hurt who they wanna hurt as long as he’s in power and the moment he fucks up someone else will be along to destroy him and you can join the crowd saying “Oh we had no idea, what a shame”. As long as them don’t let him sucker them into committing crimes on his behalf Trump is a gift to the Republican party, someone who can loudly be what they feel compelled to be quietly, then just be disposed of when he’s no longer useful.
nobody has the balls
He’ll let them steal what they wanna steal and hurt who they wanna hurt as long as he’s in power and the moment he fucks up someone else will be along to destroy him and you can join the crowd saying “Oh we had no idea, what a shame”. As long as them don’t let him sucker them into committing crimes on his behalf Trump is a gift to the Republican party, someone who can loudly be what they feel compelled to be quietly, then just be disposed of when he’s no longer useful.
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
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?
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?
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.
