Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on Thursday urged Judge Juan Merchan to slap former President Donald Trump with four contempt charges for comments Trump made about his trial on charges of falsifying business records.
Under a gag order issued by Merchan, Trump is barred from talking about the witnesses and jurors in the trial. Merchan fined Trump $9,000 earlier this week for violations of the order and mused about whether jail would need to be the answer to stop the violations.
On Thursday, a hearing took place concerning four other comments for which the prosecution wants Trump punished, according to CBS.
Two of the comments concerned Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s lawyer at the time of the 2016 payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and will be a witness. One comment concerned former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who testified last week. The fourth comment prosecutors cited was a remark about the jurors.
Prosecutor Christopher Conroy said Trump violated the order in commenting that Pecker was “very nice.”
“The defendant knows what he’s doing. He talks about the witness, says nice things, does it in front of cameras,” Conroy said. “The [question] he answered was about the witness who was testifying. It was deliberate and it was calculated.”
Attorney Todd Blanche, who was representing Trump, said the remark was a “very fair and neutral answer” to a question.
“When you have President Trump saying something completely neutral about the witness, that’s not a violation,” Blanche said. Merchan said he was “not terribly concerned” about the comment.
Blanche said Cohen has been “inviting and almost daring President Trump to respond to everything he has been saying” through “personal attacks, mocking him for being on trial and comments about his candidacy.
Will Trump beat Alvin Bragg’s prosecution?
“This is not a man that needs protection from the gag order,” Blanche said.
Blanche also responded to a comment from Trump that the jury was “95% Democrats.”
The dig “absolutely, positively” did not violate the order because no single juror was cited, Blanche argued.
Merchan did not issue an order on Thursday.
As he left court, Trump vented his frustration with the trial.
“We’re seeing all of the crime that’s going on outside, and to be sitting in this courtroom is just ridiculous. It is election interference at the highest level that’s never been done before in our country. And I shouldn’t be campaigning right now,” Trump said, according to Fox News.
“He has me under an unconstitutional gag order. Nobody’s ever had that before. And we don’t like it, and it’s not fair. Other people are allowed to do whatever they want to us, and I’m not allowed as … the Republican Party nominee, and the one who’s leading Biden by a lot, I’m not allowed to talk,” Trump said,
“There’s never been an abuse like this before, this conflicted judge should get out of this case, he should not be having this case. He gives us nothing. It’s such a rigged court. So I’m not allowed to testify. Because of an unconstitutional gag order. We’re appealing the gag order,” Trump said, according to NBC.
Earlier, Trump shared his anger on Truth Social.
WE CANNOT LET THIS RADICAL LEFT, CORRUPT AND HIGHLY CONFLICTED NEW YORK DEMOCRAT JUDGE INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024 — THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. THE USA IS TRULY A NATION IN DECLINE! REMOVE THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL GAG ORDER,” Trump posted.
