The start of today’s proceedings has been taken up with a contempt hearing into Trump violating his gag order.
Once again being asked to defend the impossible , Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche has been having a rough time of it , culminating in an exasperated judge warning him that ; “You’re losing all credibility with the court.”
There will not be an immediate ruling and the rest of the day will be taken up with the trial proper and David Pecker being called back to the stand.
While court was on a break, Trump complained about the gag order on Truth Social. In an all-caps post, he accused Justice Merchan of taking away his “right to free speech” and claimed that he was “not allowed to defend myself."
The judge absolutely can, and based on his conduct, probably will. A judge in a contempt case has the power to put some into custody. What makes you think he doesn’t have the power to tell him he can’t post on social media?
Just a little note about David Pecker. Court watchers were struck by just how relaxed , frank , and endearing he came across today , suggesting it’s a big plus for the prosecution because most of what he had to say didn’t do Trump any favours. For anyone who might not quite understand why he’s being so forthcoming (being a big buddy of Trump’s in the past and ,as it were , his erstwhile partner in crime, it’s because he has already struck an immunity deal with prosecutors and is required as part of the deal to answer honestly in court. If he is found to have lied on the stand then the whole deal is off.
Nah, look at the etymology. Eggplant was in use in 1763 in England. The use of the French loan word ‘aubergine’ is later than that, but since you left the EU you no longer are allowed to use it.
Over freedom of speech? I talking about social media posts that have nothing to do with the trail. So for the sake of a ridiculous example, are you saying the judge can ban him from posting a picture of a cat?
The judge has broad authority to do what they think is necessary to impose the required conduct of a defendant, up to an including jailing them for the length of the trial. Trump’s conduct has already been determined to be subject to correction, resulting in the judge having already tried your solution - “you can post pictures of cats, but you cannot speak about x,y,or z”. Trump has repeatedly and flagrantly violated that in ways that would result in any other person already being in jail. The options left for the judge, short of Trump deciding to shut the fuck up are 1) imposing a blanket SM ban, 2) jail, or 3) ignoring it and letting Trump get away with stuff no other defendant would be allowed to.
The judge can ban him from holding any sort of communications device, or he can just toss him into custody for the duration of the trial. So yes, the judge can ban from posting a picture of a cat. Really at the judge’s discretion as to the relevance and whether it would be provocation.
The difficulty here is if Trump was jailed for the duration of the trial, it would probably reinforce the [erroneous] messaging that the whole thing is a political witch hunt.
I hate that that’s where we are, because he deserves to be treated in accordance with the law as anyone else would be in this position.
And the galling thing is that even if he benefits from enormous leniency from the judge, who bends over backwards to not discipline Trump in accordance with the law before the trial ends, let’s say he is found guilty.
The messaging will still be about a political witch hunt.
So it seems damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and because of that I would warn him, and say if he will not shut up, the next violation will be 24 hrs in jail, then another violation will be a week, then another violation will be the entire time of the trial.
From a subjective pov, that’s just crazy. I can totally understand the toss into custody if he repeatedly breaks the rules re: commenting on the case, but preventing him from posting anything else seems to be a direct freedom of speech issue.
Isn’t it crazy how the legal system can arbitrarily confine you, or force you to carry a pregnancy to term? if only a President could come along and appoint some justices who thought about these issues…
If a defendant repeatedly shows contempt for the court, the judge starts running out of options. Let’s keep in mind that it started with an instruction not to discuss the case which he repeatedly violated. We have moved past the ‘you can post photos of a cat on social media’ stage, to the ‘you cannot regulate your own behaviour’ stage.
Back to business in Manhattan shortly where David Pecker will be giving his second full day of testimony. The picture he’s painted so far has given us a real fly on the wall insight into Trump’s venality and might his evidence in the long run prove even more damaging than the prosecution’s ‘star’ witness , Michael Cohen , because he’s a much more charming witness ?
Trump , not known for being an early bird , is up at an untimely hour this morning to fit in a campaign event in NY before he makes his way to the courthouse. So we might reasonably expect to hear more reports about him nodding off this afternoon during proceedings.
Also today , the Supreme Court will start hearing his hail mary attempt to claim presidential immunity (lol) for engineering a coup attempt. And in related news , several of his top aides , including Giuliani , Meadows and Boris Ephstyen (who is still acting as counsel) have all been indicted in Arizona for their part there in the fake elector component of the power play.
