The New York judge in Donald Trump’s criminal trial held him in contempt of court again Monday for violating his gag order prohibiting him from attacking prospective witnesses in the case and sternly warned him he could be jailed if he continues to ignore the order.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ruled at the outset of the third week of Trump’s trial in which he is accused of falsifying business records at his Trump Organization real estate conglomerate to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of his successful 2016 run for the presidency to silence her from talking about her claim of a one-time tryst with him a decade earlier.
Trump has denied her claim of a liaison and all 34 charges he is facing. But Merchan warned him that his violation of the gag order is a “direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.”
Merchan said that “the last thing” he wanted to do was to put Trump in jail but would if he had to, adding, “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well.”
Merchan fined Trump another $1,000 for the violation of the gag order, on top of the $9,000 he fined him last week for another nine violations of the gag order. Last week, Merchan acknowledged that the penalty was a pittance for a billionaire like Trump.
The case was resuming Monday, with the 12-member jury yet to hear from two key witnesses in the case against the former U.S. president – his former lawyer and political fixer, convicted perjurer Michael Cohen, and Daniels.
Jurors have heard plenty of testimony about Cohen and Daniels during the last two weeks, but prosecutors have not tipped their hand when the pair might be called to the witness stand.
Jeffrey McConney, a former corporate controller at the Trump Organization, was the first witness called Monday. Prosecutors say he helped arrange the reimbursement to Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to Daniels; Trump claims the payment to Cohen was for his legal work.
The 77-year-old Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges. Prosecutors say the payment to Daniels was to keep her from talking about her claim that she had the affair with Trump just as voters were headed to polls eight years ago.
Trump has denied the charges against him, but if convicted could be placed on probation or sentenced up to four years in prison. He is the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee in the November 5 election, set to run again against President Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated him in 2020.
Trump has also denied Daniels’ claim they had a liaison after they met at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in Nevada. Until Merchan barred him from assailing possible witnesses in the case, Trump often called Daniels “horseface.” He was 60 and she 27 at the time she claims they had sex.
Long-time Trump aide Hope Hicks testified Friday that the 2016 Trump campaign was in a state of panic in October that year, a month before the voting, as a 2005 outtake of the celebrity-driven “Access Hollywood” show was unearthed in which Trump boasted that he could sexually grope women with impunity because he was a star.
At the same time, Daniels was looking to sell her years-old story of sex with Trump or keep quiet about it before the election if she was paid to stay silent.
Cohen made the payment and said Trump later reimbursed him in monthly installments in 2017 after he became president.
The payments are central to the criminal case against Trump, which McConney has started to describe to jurors.
Hicks said that at one point Trump suggested to her that Cohen had made the hush money payment to Daniels unbeknownst to him and out of the kindness of his heart.
But Hicks, under questioning from prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, testified, “I would say that would be out of character for Michael. I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person, um, or selfless person. Um, he’s the kind of person who seeks credit.”
Cohen, often depicted in testimony as abrasive, volatile and profane, pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation linked to the case and other offenses. He served 13½ months in a federal prison and another year and a half of home confinement.
He also has turned against his former boss and is seemingly set to tell the jury of his behind-the-scenes interactions over years of loyal work for Trump.
Trump’s defense lawyers are just as certain to brand Cohen as a liar and not to be believed as he testifies.
Other witnesses are likely to describe how the reimbursement payments were made to Cohen and what role, if any, Trump played in listing them as for legal work rather than for paying off Daniels to silence her ahead of the election.
