Trump must be held in Contempt for directing MAGA allies to violate Gag Order!

Time for a hearing!

I speak to Democrats of all ages and the one thing I hear repeatedly is that the way Donald Trump has been allowed to make a mockery of the criminal justice system has lowered their confidence in the system.  That is both alarming and dangerous for our Republic.

And now we are seeing another glaring example as Trump appears to be “directing” his MAGA GOP allies to stand outside the courthouse to say things Trump is s not permitted to by way of Judge Merchan’s March 26, 2024, court order.  As Merchan wrote in that order, Trump was barred from “making or directing others to make public statements” about trial witnesses and jurors. That order was expanded a week later to include attacks on the judge’s family after Trump repeatedly smear the judge’s daughter with lies.  

This was not about curtailing Trump’s ability to speak because the Judge was personally upset with the attacks on his daughter. The sole reason for the gag order was Trump’s remarks were “a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings.” As the judge noted, Trump’s barbs against witnesses, jurors etc., “interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

And on Tuesday, a New York appeals court upheld that gag order, finding that Judge Merchan "properly determined that [Trump's] public statements posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses in this case." The appellate court added, “We find that Justice Merchan properly weighed petitioner's First Amendment Rights against the court's historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm."

But on Monday and Tuesday of this week, Trump has been making a mockery of the court and our justice system by apparently directing GOP surrogates to circumvent this gag order by attacking witness Michael Cohen on the very days he was testifying and smearing the judge’s daughter with lies.

On Monday, MAGA Senator Tommy Tuberville attacked Cohen with a statement that would’ve likely landed Trump in prison: “I’m sitting here listening to a guy on the stand that they had to get out of house arrest because he lied in another court to testify in this court.” We heard same from MAGA Senator JD Vance who declared, “Does any reasonable, sensible person really believe anything that Michael Cohen says?”

On Tuesday, it could not have been more apparent that Trump’s Republican allies—all dressed like Trump in blue suits, red ties and white shirts in some upscale version of The Proud Boys uniform--peddled the identical talking points.  In fact, Speaker Mike Johnson could be seen reading off paper when he attacked Michael Cohen—who was testifying that day—with lines like, “No one should believe a word he says in there.”

But it was the attacks on the Judge’s daughter that were all almost verbatim that made it clear this was coordinated. For example, on Tuesday, MAGA Speaker Johnson smeared the Judge’s daughter saying she is a Democratic political who was “making millions of dollars doing online fund-raising for Democrats.”

Vivek Ramaswamy then took the microphone to say: "The real bookkeeping that we need an accounting of is Judge Merchan's own family member collecting millions of dollars as a Democratic operative using the existence of this trial as a fundraising ploy for Democrats."  MAGA Rep. Byron Donalds stated shortly after that, "His daughter is raising money for Democrats. And all of the fundraising emails are about this trial.”  And on Monday, Vance stated: "The judge inside — his daughter is making millions of dollars running against Donald Trump, raising money for Donald Trump's political opponents." 

When Trump was asked if he was coordinating the surrogates, he responded coyly, “I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully and they come from all over Washington…”

But little by little we are getting evidence Trump is behind this. New York Magazine contributing editor Andrew Rice stated Tuesday on MSNBC that he spotted Trump “editing” and “making notations” to the speeches his allies then made outside of the courtroom. As Rice noted, “I was sitting close enough that I could actually look over Trump’s shoulder and see what he was reading. At one point he was actually reading the quotes that these individuals were– and going through and making notations with a pen on the paper.”  Rice added, “So this is one way to get around the gag order.”

On Tuesday, former Trump White House Communications Director Michael Dubke (who is still pro-Trump) said on CNN that Trump was mobilizing his proxies to the courthouse amid his ongoing trial in an effort to “get around the gag order” imposed on him.  And MAGA Senator Tommy Tuberville on Newsmax admitted that the intent of the elected officials was to violate the gag order on Trump’s behalf, adding that he hopes “more and more senators and congressmen go up every day to represent him, and be able to go out and overcome this gag order.”

There is obviously credible, objective evidence that Trump may be “directing” the statements in violation of the gag order. That is why a hearing is needed for the judge to explore this.

But this is not just about punishing Trump. In fact, I’d say just as importantly it’s about increasing confidence in our justice system and institutions that Trump and MAGA are so hell bent on undermining. Trump—like all fascist leaders—wants no checks on his powers. That is why Trump works tirelessly to delegitimize our institutions from elections to the justice system.

We need the Manhattan DA and Judge Merchan now to step up and hold Trump accountable because what Trump is doing a clearly a “direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

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