Left: Judge Juan Merchan poses for a picture in his chambers in New York, Thursday, March 14, 2024. Merchan is presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York (AP Photo/Seth Wenig). Right: FILE – Former President Donald Trump is escorted to a courtroom, April 4, 2023, in New York (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File).
After much anticipation and a hearing that did not go well for the defense, Donald Trump’s hush-money trial judge formally held the former president in criminal contempt for nine Truth Social and campaign website posts that violated a gag order and warned that if the post or “reposting” spree continues, the defendant’s next stop could be jail.
Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan noted at the outset of his decision and order that Trump “does not dispute that he either posted or reposted” the statements. But the judge notably denied the Trump team’s claims that the violations were not willful, including a pointed rejection of their retweets do not equal endorsements style of argument.
“This Court rejects Defendant’s arguments and finds that the People have established the elements of criminal contempt beyond a reasonable doubt as to Exhibits 2-10,” Merchan wrote, agreeing that nine of 10 Trump posts cited by the Manhattan DA’s Office ran afoul of his “lawful and unambiguous” updated gag order barring Trump from making or directing others to make statements about “known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses” in the case, such as Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, and about “any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.”
Writing that because the “issue of ‘reposting’ appears to be a question of first impression,” Merchan said he relied on “common sense” in determining that “there can be no doubt whatsoever, that Defendant’s intent and purpose when reposting, is to communicate to his audience that he endorses and adopts the posted statement as his own.”
Allowing that reposts do not always equal endorsements, the judge nonetheless said that the “only credible finding” based on the “unique facts and circumstances of this case” was that these social media posts were Trump statements.
Next, the judge pointed out that one Truth Social post that seemed to quote Fox News host Jesse Watters was actually “altered” by Trump to add words that Watters did not say.
“This is not a repost but rather the Defendant’s own words,” Merchan explained. “Mr. Watters uttered a statement which Defendant altered, placed in quotes, attributed to Mr. Watters and posted. The purpose being to call into question the legitimacy of the jury selection process in this case. This constitutes a clear violation of the Expanded Order and requires no further analysis.”
In court, prosecutors said that Watters did not say the “to get on the Trump jury” part of the quote the former president attributed to him. Merchan explained his reasoning further in a footnote:
Exhibit 10 is a post containing a quote which Defendant attributes to Jesse Watters. However, the words contained within the quotation marks misstate what Jesse Watters actually said. Thus, in this Court’s view, this post constitutes the words of Defendant himself.
Even as Merchan slammed Trump for willful violations of his orders, he said he was mindful of the presidential candidate’s First Amendment rights. In the end, though, he held Trump in contempt and issues a stern warning that “jail may be a necessary punishment” if the gag order violations continue.
“Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” the judge said, fining Trump the maximum $1,000 per gag order violation and ordering him to remove the “offending posts” by 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday.
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