Donald Trump ordered to pay $9,000 for violating gag order in hush money trial

Ex-President Donald Trump was held in contempt of court and hit with a $9,000 fine for violating a gag order that prohibited him from publicly commenting on potential witnesses, court staff and jurors in his hush money criminal trial.

Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan, who announced his findings from the bench Tuesday morning, told Trump he would be jailed if he continued to violate the gag order.

“Defendant curated the posts at issue and then took the necessary steps to publish the posts on his Truth Social account and on his campaign website. In doing so, he endorsed the posts with one purpose in mind — to maximize viewership and to communicate a stamp of approval,” the judge wrote. … “The people have met their burden on contempt.”

The judge also ordered Trump to remove the posts, and he has until 5 p.m. to pay the fine.

In his order, Merchan noted that the $1,000 fine for a “contemner” of extreme wealth, like Trump, may not be sufficient to deter further violations of the gag order. The judge said that because he does not have the discretion to fine the former president more than that, he will consider incarceration for any future offenses.

“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,” Merchan warned.

Lead defense attorney Todd Blanche had argued that Trump must be able to respond to political attacks as he runs for office, but the judge noted that Trump's lawyers could not provide examples of political attacks.

"Just to set the record very straight and clear, President Trump does, in fact, know what the gag order allows him to do and not allow him to do and there's been no willful violation of the gag order in the 10 posts," Blanche said last week during a hearing on the contempt issue. "There is no dispute that President Trump is facing a barrage of political attacks from all sides, including from the two witnesses who are referenced in the early posts."

But the judge said he had given the defense team an opportunity to cite attacks by protected witnesses attacking Trump.

“Aside from referencing a Tweet in their responsive papers relating to Exhibit 1, counsel was unable to direct the Court's attention to any other specific 'attacks' by the protected witnesses which immediately preceded Defendant's posts. Defendant offered no exhibits at the hearing,” the judge wrote.

The gag order ruling came just as the second week of testimony began in Trump's historic trial on charges that he paid hush money to an adult film star with whom he had an affair so that she wouldn't go public with the allegations and hurt his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election.

Merchan, in a written decision, added: “To allow such attacks upon protected witnesses with blanket assertions that they are all responses to 'political attacks' would be an exception that swallowed the rule. The Expanded Order does not contain such an exception.”

The judge's ruling came Tuesday morning as testimony was set to resume with a banker who prosecutors alleged worked with Trump’s onetime personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen.

Cohen, a Lawrence native, paid off an adult film star who Trump allegedly had an affair with to protect Trump's 2016 presidential election chances.

Gary Farro, who took the stand Friday afternoon, testified that he handled Cohen's bank accounts in 2016 at First Republic Bank, and Cohen put in paperwork in the fall of that year ahead of the November presidential election to establish two accounts for separate limited liability companies, Resolution Consultants LLC and Essential Consultants LLC.

Prosecutors argue that Cohen set up the accounts to these shell companies to launder the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Mangold pointed out that in filling out the paperwork to set up Resolution Consultants, Cohen checked a box to assert the account would not be used for fundraising for a political campaign.

Farro testified that he was assigned the Cohen accounts because he was known to be adept at handling “challenging” clients.

Though Farro said he never found him challenging, the former Trump lawyer always seemed harried.

“Every time that Michael Cohen spoke to me he gave me a sense of urgency,” said Farro, who now works for Flagstar Bank.

Farro was the third prosecution witness and followed former Trump personal assistant Rhona Graf, who testified Friday that she once saw Daniels in the waiting room at Trump Tower. Graf said she assumed Daniels was auditioning for Trump's then-NBC reality show, “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Graff, who worked for the Trump Organization for 34 years and noted she was testifying under subpoena, said Trump had contact information for both Daniels and Karen McDougal, who prosecutors say was also paid in order to keep her affair with Trump quiet.

Trump's historic trial, which is the first time a president or ex-president is being tried on criminal charges, began April 15 with jury selection.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the $130,000 payment to Daniels, an adult film star.

Prosecutors have said the payment was illegally recorded in Trump's business records as legal services but said it amounted to “election fraud.”

Prosecutors have said that Trump “formed a conspiracy” with Cohen  and David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher, during a meeting in August 2015 at Trump Tower to prevent negative information about Trump from becoming public.

Prosecutors have said the scheme violated election law.

Pecker, who spent four days on the stand as the first prosecution witness, took the jury inside the alleged conspiracy and the scandalous world of supermarket tabloids. Pecker outlined the alleged “catch and kill” scheme used to purchase the rights to unflattering stories about Trump, but then “kill” the stories by declining to publish them.

Pecker had testified that he knew before his role in brokering the deals to silence Trump’s alleged paramours, as well as a door attendant who falsely said Trump had fathered a child with a maid, that the financial arrangements could run afoul of election law because he had dealt with those issues in 2003 when former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for office.