Judge in New York fraud trial threatens to jail Trump for violating gag order

18-24-61-B-17-17-4@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 813 points –
Judge threatens to imprison Trump for violating gag order in New York fraud trial
nbcnews.com
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DO.IT.

That orange fucker needs to see some consequences for his actions for once.

More than him -- our nations people.

When Nixon fucked around he stepped down. In doing so, he said to the American people "what I did was wrong and I recognize that."

Trump won't admit wrongdoing. He's been indicted on fucking 90 counts. Until he is actually punished, his followers will only see that they can try to do the same.

Society needs to renounce him, fully, or were fucked.

Meh. I kinda wish we would have set a harder precedent with rather than letting him go on a PR tour.

I think it possibly could have prevented a lot of the ensuing political corruption we’ve seen.

Same could have been said if we had actually nailed Ronnie Raygun to the wall for Iran/Contra. Instead, we let him coast. And that was even worse than Watergate.

Republicans have been skating for years and years for their crimes.

Might’ve happened had there been a precedent for it. Same with all the war crimes for Cheney/Bush. Instead they’re counting their money and fingerprinting.

Ford pardoned Nixon, so there wasn't much that could be done to punish Nixon after that. They couldn't even go after him at the state level since the Watergate scandal happened in DC. Pardoning Nixon was a major part of why Ford didn't get reelected, although there were several other major reasons for that.

Obviously, but Ford shouldn’t have. That was most of the point.

Still, that wouldn’t have made him immune to impeachment (and hopefully the ultimate barring from holding office).

But the point is moot, and bipartisan vileness will ensure we don’t see a precedence for any of these things in decades.

I think part of the problem is that jailing him would just make him more powerful to his supporters. I honestly think Trump wants to be jailed for this shit.

This is BULL SHIT. Jailing him would show his supporters there are still consequences.

Also, it's likely to draw some of them out to do some illegal stuff in "protest" of donnie the Nepo Baby being locked up.

And then THEY can be put in prison, too. :)

But would his supporters see it that way? They're so innoculated against reality that they accept his narrative uncritically. They won't see it as consequences, because they don't see him as guilty.

I also don't think the effects on his supporters' beliefs should matter much to prosecution for his crimes. I can't imagine there's any way for that to have an effect that nudges them towards reality

It's not relevant in this context.

Tell me honestly...what can they do? Cry? Whine? Go attack the fbi and then shoot themselves like that one guy?

I keep hearing this argument and it baffles me as to what people like you are afraid of or think is going to happen...

I feel like you're arguing against a very different position that I hold/expressed? I don't think they'll do all that much differently than they were already going to. Trying to appease his supporters by tempering the justice for his crimes won't work, and will probably do more harm.

But would his supporters see it that way?

I don't care

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It doesn't matter what his little cult of idiots think, he should be bound by the same laws as everyone else.

It would deplatform him and that's the best way to kill the movement for anyone but the most radical.

We can see that in Canada with the far right party that medias had the legal obligation to cover during the last campaign (because of high enough vote intentions based on surveys), after the campaign (and after not winning a single seat) their social medias lost 80% of its audience based on the number of likes and shares. The followers just stopped caring because they weren't all over the news anymore.

Get Trump off the news and off social media and his chance of winning the primary will become zero.

Why do we care about the karens who are still supoorting this guy? They'll cry about him being in jail and then get distracted by the next bit of ragebait. We have to stop treading on eggshells around these people.

He can't spout off bullshit at campaign rallies if he's behind bars for contempt of court.

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In response, Trump's defense attorney, Chris Kise said, "Based on my understanding this was truly inadvertent."

"The Truth Social post was taken down when the court asked," Kise said. "Truth Social was taken down and Trump never made any more comments about court staff, but it appears no one took it down on the campaign website. It is unfortunate and I apologize on behalf of my client."

Whoops! My bad. All good here, nothing to see.

Oh, that's bullshit. He has some sort of fetish about being thrown in jail over campaign speech. It is no accident they left it up there. "Biden locked me up because he is afraid of my campaign!!!1!!1111!!1!one!"

It's easy. He gets thrown in jail, him and his cronies get to paint him as a martyr. It's all he has left

Fetish is probably exactly the right word. He idolizes Hitler. Jan 6 was his Beer Hall Putsch, next he needs to get convicted, give a really long speech about being wildly more antiemetic and patriotic than anyone could ever imagine and then he needs to sit in a cushy prison cell where he can "write" his version of Mien Kampf.

Not like Trump ever lied to his lawyers.

Honestly as much as I hate the guy I can kinda see how that could happen.

I can see how the post got mirrored automatically and they lost track of it, sure, but remember that he posted the damn thing in the first place. All he had to do was to choose, for once in his life, to not be an asshole.

I look forward to never hearing the name Trump again.

Unfortunately I don't think we will ever stop hearing his name, Hitler has been dead for almost 80 years and we still hear his almost daily.

Yeah, but as fucked up as it is to say, Hitler actually accomplished something with his time in power worth talking a about.

Trump packed the Supreme Court and did irreversible damage to our election process and radicalized half the nation, just because the wave hasn't hit the shore yet doesn't mean he didn't do any damage. The damage he did will be unfolding itself for a lifetime, give the dust some time to settle and then evaluate what he "accomplished".

Radicalizing the nation, sure, but I'd say thay packing the court was more on Mitch McTurtle Moscow Mitch. And an equally big problem seems to be all the positions they managed to snag in local elections. That one will also take a while to fix...

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Yeah. He killed Hitler. It's like....the one good thing he did. Any other accomplishments he may have had are rendered null and void by the atrocities he committed.

Donny’s too much a coward to take that path, even if it’s where his hero’s footprints lead him

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Hitler was much more impactful though, he is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions and a war that devastated countries around the globe.

Trump is a corrupt politician who was too incompetent to accomplish what his handlers wanted. He wants to be a Mussolini, he just isn’t capable.

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Judges parenting baby Trump:

I’m gonna count to 3!

1…

2…

2 and a half…

2 and three quarters…

almost 3…

seriously really almost 3…

You're not wrong, but there is a reason for it. The judge(s) are trying to show that they gave Trump every chance to follow their orders before throwing him in jail. It may have seemed like a really like time to us, but by court standards it's not.

But instead fined him $5,000. This headline is stupid.

I am not a lawyer, but my first thought is that you cannot pass a six figure (or more) fine for this kind of infraction. Even though Trump is starting to show a pattern of disregarding this specific case’s proceedings, the judge would have to start at a reasonable amount and go up from there. In this case, I searched for reasonable fines for violating a gag order and got $1000 to $10000. If he handed down a $500,000 fine then the media / right would go crazy questioning if this fine was justified by Trump’s actions. I think we all know that regardless of the sum (barring $100,000+ fines), Trump is gonna disregard the fine and do it again. But doing so gets Trump closer to actually being imprisoned (in theory). The actual threat of being imprisoned is far more likely to quiet Trump than a monetary fee. ‘Tis the life of the (comparatively) rich, monetary fines don’t have the same sticking power as for you and I.

There are many other countries, including some with some shared legal history with the US, where civil fines are proportional to the income and/or wealth of the person. Rich people get four or five or six figure traffic tickets, etc.

All gag orders are not equal. Given this one was due to what amounts to a threat against his staff, I find it unlikely most judges in other circumstances would have let this happen with such flagrant disregard for the order without jail time. The fact is, Trump supporters are violent, and this judge is scared of that violence. A slap on the wrist is all he had the courage to do, and I'm doubtful anything will change with this judge going forward. He just knows how appalling it is to have his hard working and innocent staff threatened and reacted like someone with a spine momentarily, and then he realized he doesn't have one and walked it back.

The entire thing is theater.

All gag orders are not equal. Given this one was due to what amounts to a threat against his staff, I find it unlikely most judges in other circumstances would have let this happen with such flagrant disregard for the order without jail time.

This is the bit I don't get, Trump doxxing court staff and encouraging his followers to harass them is surely way beyond contempt of court. Is that not an entirely new crime by itself?

You'd think so, but like we're seeing with the Jim Jordan thing, people are quite honestly (and reasonably) scared of escalating violence and harassment from... punishing the incitement of violence and harassment. The problem comes from the fact that you can't stop the escalation that will occur simply by punishing the inciter--you make it worse. That's why mob violence and stochastic terrorism are so scary.

That's refreshingly rational, all things considered. Thank you.

Stop threatening it. Anyone else would already be behind bars right now. Follow through.

Nobody is above the law. Trump has been fucking around for too long and needs to find out his actions have consequences.

This geriatric fuck hasn’t seen a single consequence in his whole life, would be nice to see literally anything be done

Nobody is above the law? That remains to be seen

Idk why you got that single down vote. If no one has been paying attention, then I'll just mention it here. The law (usually) only applies when you're poor.

Poor, or done something to someone richer than you.

I've actually been curious about this, I'm not seeing any down votes on the comment you're talking about. Is it instant specific?

Some instances don't count downvotes, and sometimes up/downs take a while to federate.

You got a downvote from me for whining about downvotes.

Just thought you'd like to know so you don't have to post a followup whining about why you were downvoted.

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Remember in 2011, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn (powerful French politician and head of the IMF) was arrested , for raping a maid at the hotel he'd been staying at? And the reaction from France was all Why would you do such a thing?!, and the American reaction to France was Why wouldn't we - no one is above the law!

I really miss those days.

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Nobody is above the law.

Patently false. Anyone else behaving as Trump has and indicted on the array of charges he is would be waiting for trial from a jail cell.

Whatever happens to him now, it will be far less than would have happened to you or I had we committed the same crimes.

Nobody is above the law.

It should be true. I want to make it true. But it sure doesn't seem to be true at present.

"Nobody is above the law"
-citation needed

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The headline is incorrect. The corrected version should read: "Judge in NY fraud trial threatens to jail Trump for violating gag order, ends up doing nothing."

These people need to shit or get off the pot already. This really is a legalese version of "I'm going to count to three......"

The headline is incorrect, but yours isn't much better.

It should read "Judge asks Trump to explain why he shouldn't be sanctioned or jailed". Because this is what the judge actually said:

I will now allow the defendant to explain why this should not end up with serious sanctions or I could possibly imprison him

And he was given that opportunity. The lawyers claimed the usual "it was an accident and I pinky swear it won't happen again until next time" excuse. There's no indication the judge imposed sanctions. He didn't imprison Trump. He didn't reschedule another hearing over the matter. He did nothing.

The lawyers pointed out that they partially complied with the order, by pulling the post from Truth Social and not mentioning it further. This is a mitigating factor that argues for good faith and against maximum sanctions. The hearing was this morning, and minor sanctions are still a possibility.

More generally, I think there is a tendency to project our desire to see Trump in jail onto this judge. That's why people are disappointed by headlines like "Judge threatens Trump with jail". The judge doesn't want to put Trump in jail as much as we do. He would prefer a reason not to put Trump in jail, and he got one.

The judge doesn’t want to put Trump in jail as much as we do. He would prefer a reason not to put Trump in jail, and he got one.

Seems to be a recurring fucking problem.

He has to consider the safety of his staff in his decision making which I think people forget. If putting him in jail could be avoided that would be best for the parties involved. It's not fair it just but the lives of their staff are taking priority.

By this logic we are essentially saying that you are above the law so long as you can get enough people willing to commit violence on your behalf.

I mean yeah, but based on his behavior during this trial this is what I'm assuming he's bashing his actions on.

The judge ended up giving Trump a $5000 fine for this violation.

A semantic difference. Trump will provide no rational explanation, and the judge won't jail him anyway.

Trump's lawyers did provide an explanation. They said they immediately deleted his Truth Social post, but did not realize a copy remained on his website.

Which is plausible, because there was no media coverage about that copy until yesterday. And once the media brought it to their attention, his lawyers immediately deleted that copy, too.

Is that enough to satisfy the judge? I think so, or at least enough to avoid jail. It would be a different matter if this were a new post instead of a copy of the old one, or if the lawyers took their time in deleting it.

I reluctantly accept your explanation.

Nonetheless, one of the truisms that Trump's rise to power has taught us is: All you need is enough money and you get the gentle treatment. I am 100% certain that nothing which will befall him in any of these pending court cases is going to disprove this.

Meanwhile, people already struggling get ground into dust pretty much the moment they are required to interact with the justice system in any way.

Never in the history of our country has a president been indicted so many times. Over so many many alleged crimes. Truly a rigged two tiered just system allowing an indicted former president, storing TS/SCI documents in his bathroom, who has a history of over sharing, and flushing government documents, could remain free, instead of immured in a black-site hole, in pre-trial detainment. Reality Winner was sentenced to five years and three months and she didn't even get to share how close our submarines could get to Russian Subs without being detected. For shame!

so many many alleged crimes.

This isn't a court of law and you aren't a corporation. You're allowed to acknowledge his thoroughly proven (and in some cases even brag-admitted) guilt for what it is. Nobody's going to sue you for telling the truth and nobody reasonable is going to complain either.

Most prominently, Trump is a public figure, so a lawsuit would have to prove malice intent.

I can say Trump is guilty all day long because I have free political speech, and honest intent.

To be fair, a decent amount of presidents probably should have been indicted. Trump does take the cake on how directly connected he is to obvious crimes. He's definitely the dumbest in that regard.

Here's what I would do: Trump is ordered to write a formal apology letter to the clerk in which he disavows the spurious claims outlaid in his post, he must record himself reading the letter and post it to his website for at least 2 months. Or he can go to jail for contempt of court.

This way he either does something he definitely does not want to do (admit fault) or go to jail and because he 'holds the keys to his cell' so to speak, his claims of being wrongfully imprisoned would be hollow.

Unfortunately I believe there is a long case history that prevents courts from forcing them to say things as it violates the 1st amendment. Similar to forcing engineers to write code that puts "backdoors" into security systems.

I think there is precedent for apologizing as an alternative to punishment, but I'm no expert so you may well be correct.

Just look at Powell, she must write a letter of apology, but the difference there is she took a deal and agreed to it vs being forced into it I guess?

Right, my thought is that the apology would be in lieu of going to jail for contempt, so he isn't being forced to apologize, he violated a court order and is being punished, he could then choose to forgo punishment by apologizing.

I'm fascinated by your choice of analogy. Do you have a story to tell?

I think he literally couldn't bring himself to make the apology, though. He's way too much of a narcissist.

His claim of being wrongfully imprisoned is already hollow, his supporters are going to believe it regardless of the hoops

Also not apologizing/admitting fault is a point of price for them

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Stop making empty threats. If this had been anyone else, they would have been in jail years ago. But we're a nation of corrupt men and not of laws.

If you're ever unsure whether there are separate judicial systems for the aristocrats and the poors, try threatening a judge while not rich and see how many warnings you get.

Your average citizen would go straight to jail. Trump is just threatened.

Oh I am sure this stern warning will do the trick.

So the argument is they did take it down from Truth Social, but it remained on the campaign website? I mean, I GUESS that's plausible deniability... but still feels intentional.

Folks, it’s not like Trump can afford to pay lackeys or webmasters to do things. Stuff like this is just gonna slip through the cracks. He doesn’t have millions in campaign contributions pouring in from dumb fuck sycophants as a direct result of these charges!

/s

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial in New York raised the possibility on Friday of putting the former president in prison after Trump failed to comply with a partial gag order requiring him to remove a post trashing the judge's law clerk on social media.

Judge Arthur Engoron said in court on Friday morning that Trump had posted on his social media account "an untrue and disparaging post about my clerk" and that he spoke to the former president about the matter.

He continued, "Despite this order, last night I learned the offending post was never removed from a website.

Engoron said the post remained on Trump's 2024 campaign website for 17 days and was removed late Thursday night after the court emailed him.

In response, Trump's defense attorney, Chris Kise said, "Based on my understanding this was truly inadvertent."

"Truth Social was taken down and Trump never made any more comments about court staff, but it appears no one took it down on the campaign website.


The original article contains 267 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 37%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

This turd has been threatened with jail too much. Neither he nor his sycophants believe it. Call their bluff!

If they truly took it out on truth social and not on the campaign website their claim of oversight might work, but repeats won’t go over so well.

So...it's an empty threat because he was already told not to do it.

Trump and his supporters think he's above the law. I hope they'll show that he's not.

I truly believe he'll never see the inside of a jail cell because the powers that run the country are terrified of what his nutcase acolytes will do.