Judge Juan Merchan has held Trump in contempt for the tenth time for violating the gag order imposed in the hush money trial.
The judge has warned him that if he persists in defying the order, he will consider jail time for the former president.
“Mr. Trump, it’s important you understand, the last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” the judge said. “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well.”
Jail time for Trump would be insufficient unless it’s long enough to cover the contempt many Americans would hold for the injustices he committed during his reign of terror.
At the end of the day, Trump suggested he would be willing to go to jail. “I’ll do that sacrifice any day,” he said.
Rather than put him in jail—and that would certainly arouse his relative quiet base—let him endure the testimony for the next several weeks. And some of it is getting very interesting. For example, on Monday, it was disclosed that a former Trump Organization executive, through handwritten notes, exposed serious tax fraud by Trump.
The notes revealed $180,000 in reimbursement to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and so-called fixer. The payment consisted of a $130,000 wire transfer, the same amount paid to Stormy Daniels, $50,000 for tech services, plus an additional bonus of $60,000. Trump’s lawyer tried in vain to have that information struck from the record.
Trump has the nerve to declare that the trial is “interference” in his campaign, striking irony for someone unsuccessful in actually trying to do just that; there are three other trials on the docket that will directly determine the extent to which he is guilty of such a nefarious gambit.
Yes, hold Trump in contempt—It’s a shame that the people you have disparaged are not given a chance to register their disgust and contempt for you and what you’ve done to them as thief, ah, chief of state.
