New York: The New York judge presiding over Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial again found the former US president in contempt of a gag order on Monday, May 6, and threatened to jail him for further violations.
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 was also fined a total of $9,000 last week.The Judge Juan Merchan said these penalties were not serving as a “deterrent” and he would have to consider jail time for further violations.
“As much as I do not want to impose a jail sanction […] I want you to understand I will,” Merchan told Trump. “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.”
In addition to the New York case, Trump has been accused in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Biden. He also faces charges of illegally storing huge quantities of top-secret documents taken from the White House after his presidency to his home in Florida.
