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| The king of white privilege wants to show how tough he is in jail. |
Donald J. Trump represents the very definition of white privilege. While others are jailed or forced to pay hefty fines for defying a court order, Trump complains about the very system he claimed to swore an oath to is unfair. He basically blaming President Joe Biden for his legal woes. He is still insulting the judge, the prosecutors and wasting the federal and state courts time with these ridiculous appeals.
Tell me a person who held on to top secret documents and defied an order from the U.S. government to return them immediately or face the consequences. Yeah, Biden and Mike Pence had classified documents at their homes. But they headed an order and returned without any consequences.
Tell me, if Biden tried to intimidate state and federal officials into not granting certification of a president-elect would he be subjected to the same standards as Trump?
Would the far right be calling for an arrest if Biden declared the elections were stolen and Americans would be denied their votes were counted?
Trump rallies aren't as huge as they were in 2015 and 2016. Practically, they are in the hundreds not the thousands. Many of his supporters come from other communities or states to see him regurgitate the same noise. He doesn't talk about his presidency or what his plans are for a new term. He just constantly complains about Biden and how the 2020 election was stolen. Many of his supporters still think he is actually the president.
He is not campaigning as much. Thanks to the trial, he is mostly doing random stops and often fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago. He still has his appeal case where the state of New York fined him over $450 million for tax fraud. He also faces his Georgia election interference trial and is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on how the U.S. government can handle a former president. He has two federal court trials.
If the Supreme Court rules in Trump's favor, it will ensure that Trump, Biden and future presidents are no longer held accountable for criminal acts.
It may be a good thing for Trump. The protests are not focused on him for now.
Biden is getting them because of his "ironclad" support for Israel. It is driving him down and many are not supporting him because of it.
The U.S. Secret Service has talked to the New York State Police and New York Department of Corrections. Since he has protection because of him being a former president and a presidential candidate, Trump being jailed is going to be a hefty task.
Justice Juan Merchan said the nine $1,000 fines he had imposed previously did not seem to be deterring the wealthy business mogul from violating the order, which bars him from speaking publicly about the jurors and witnesses in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
“I do not want to impose a jail sanction and have done everything I can to avoid doing so. But I will if necessary,” Merchan said at the start of the trial's 12th day before the jury entered.
Imprisonment would be an unprecedented step in the historic trial, which stems from a hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 election.
After Merchan's ruling, jurors heard testimony from former Trump employees that could bolster prosecutors' case that Trump falsified business records to cover up the hush money payment.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies wrongdoing.
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| Merchan warned Trump to stop following conspiracy theories and posting information about witness on Truth Social. |
As he imposed the fine, Merchan said he considered jail time “truly the last resort” as it would disrupt the trial, pose extraordinary security challenges and complicate the 2024 presidential election, in which the Republican Trump seeks to win the White House back from Democratic President Joe Biden.
But the judge said Trump’s “continued, willful” violations of the gag order amounted to a “direct attack on the rule of law.”
Merchan imposed the 10th $1,000 fine on Monday for an April 22 broadcast interview in which the former president said: "That jury was picked so fast - 95% Democrats. The area's mostly all Democrat."
Merchan found that other statements flagged by prosecutors that mentioned witnesses Michael Cohen and David Pecker did not violate the gag order.
The order prevents Trump from making statements about jurors, witnesses and families of the judge and prosecutors if meant to interfere with the case. Violations are punishable by fines of up to $1,000 or jail time of up to 30 days.
Last week Merchan fined Trump $9,000 for nine social media posts that he ruled had violated the gag order.
Trump complains frequently that the gag order limits his ability to make his case to voters in his comeback White House bid.
"He's taken away my constitutional right to speak," Trump told reporters outside the courtroom, before the judge fined him.
Prosecutors on Monday later showed jurors business records that documented payments totaling $420,000 from Trump to Cohen, his former fixer and personal lawyer.
Those payments were listed as legal fees, but prosecutors say they were actually meant to reimburse Cohen for paying $130,000 to Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.
Trump denies ever having had sex with Daniels.
Prosecutors say the $420,000 paid by Trump was meant to cover the $130,000 Cohen paid to Daniels, along with $50,000 in other expenses he had incurred. Trump doubled that total to account for taxes and also included a $60,000 year-end bonus, they say.
A former controller in Trump's organization, Jeffrey McConney, testified that he was not aware of any other instance in which the Trump Organization reimbursed someone so generously.
McConney said he never spoke with Trump about the payments but was told by the company's top finance official Allen Weisselberg that they were reimbursements.
Another former Trump employee, Deborah Tarasoff, walked the jury through the 34 invoices, ledger entries and checks stemming from the payments to Cohen, which were made on a monthly basis after Trump won the election. Each represents one of the 34 counts in the indictment against Trump.
Most of the checks were signed by Trump personally, and prosecutors highlighted his tall, looping signature in thick ink for the jury.
Prosecutors say the payment to Daniels corrupted the 2016 election by keeping the news from voters, at a time when Trump's treatment of women was a central issue in his campaign against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
They say the altered business records covered up election-law and tax-law violations that elevate the 34 counts Trump faces from misdemeanors to felonies punishable by up to four years in prison.
If found guilty, Trump could face up to four years in prison, though defendants typically face fines and probation.
The main players in the case have yet to testify, including Cohen and Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
The case features sordid allegations of adultery and secret payoffs, but it is widely seen as less consequential than three other criminal prosecutions Trump faces. It is the only one certain to go to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The other cases charge him with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all three.
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