Former U.S. President Donald Trump has been held in criminal contempt and fined $9,000 for violating multiple times a gag order imposed in the hush money trial taking place in New York.
Last month, in the lead up to Trump’s criminal trial regarding alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, New York’s Supreme Court issued an order prohibiting the defendant, noted for his prolific social media activity, from making extrajudicial statements that could influence jurors and witnesses.
From court documents, it is clear that prosecutors argued Trump had breached the order by posting and reposting illicit content at least 10 times on his social media platform Truth Social and his campaign website. Trump did not deny that he had posted or reposted the content, but claimed it did not violate the order, illustrating that it involved “protected political speech” and posting carries different legal implications from reposting.
Judge Juan Merchan, citing a lack of legal precedent, used “common sense” to decide that the reposts, in this case, carried the same legal weight as posts. Judge Merchan emphasized that both Trump’s Truth Social profile and his campaign website represent his views and opinions and he reposted this content specifically to increase visibility.
Merchan further decided Trump wilfully disobeyed the order with respect to the remaining nine posts and ordered him to pay $1,000 for each one. He was also ordered to remove the offending posts by Tuesday afternoon and was warned that future willful violations of the order could lead to incarceration. As of publication, the nine offending posts had apparently been deleted.
The case regarding hush money payments is only one of the several against Trump currently pending in U.S. courts and one of four pending criminal cases against the former president.
Trump has previously been issued a gag order in his federal election interference criminal case, which he unsuccessfully challenged before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Trump was also given a gag order in his New York civil fraud trial, which a state appeals court upheld.