America's Talking - Judge Fines Trump for 10th Gag Order Violation, Warns About Jail

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

A judge on Monday fined former President Donald Trump for violating a gag order in his New York hush money case for a tenth time. Prosecutors had alleged Trump violated the gag order an additional four times, but Judge Juan Merchan found only one instance violated the order. In his ruling, the judge fined Trump $1,000 for comments he made during an April 22, 2024, interview with "Just the News No Noise." During the interview, Trump said the jury was packed with Democrats.  Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire service. We were recording this on Friday, May 10th. There were several developments this week in the ongoing criminal cases against former President Donald Trump. The New York Hush Money trial is finishing up its fourth week where the former president faces 34 felony counts related to accusations he falsified business records to cover up a payment to. to an adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence and about an alleged fare they had prior to the 2016 presidential election. Trump denied there ever was an affair and pleaded not guilty to all charges. Daniels took the stand this week and prosecutors questioned her on

many of the salacious details of the alleged affair, earning a rebuke from the judge, who mostly has been seen as friendly to the prosecution. The judge also found Trump in contempt of court for the 10th time, find him an additional $1,000 and weren't warned that further violations of his gag order could lead to jail. The former president says that gag order is a violation of his First Amendment rights to free speech and that the entire case is a political winch hunt intended to keep him off the ballot in November. Joining me to discuss the developments in the Stormy Daniels case and the other criminal cases against Trump is Brett Rowland, investigative reporter at the center square. Brett, we'll get into the developments in the other criminal cases in a moment,

but let's start with the ongoing hush money trial in New York City, which is looking more and more likely that it will be the only one resolved before the November presidential election. Brett, bring our listeners up to speed. That's right, Dan. This could possibly be the only trial, or the only case that goes to trial before the election. This week has been a pretty busy one in New York with the hush money trial underway. Stormy Daniels did take the stand. She brought up a lot of stuff that was embarrassing for Trump. Of course, Trump has denied her claims. Just how it will land with the jury remains to be seen. But we can already tell that the judge is quite unhappy with former President Trump. On Monday, he started off the week

with his 10th fine for Trump and then made it clear that additional violations of the gag order could result in jail time for the president. Now, that would open a lot of questions on just how that would play out if indeed there was another gag order violation. The judge did order jail time, whether that would delay the trial or not remains to be seen. It would also be pretty unprecedented to have a former president who's running for office in jail. So there's a lot of issues there. And I think that that case, there's going to be more surprises ahead for us there. But that wasn't the only thing that happened with Trump this week.

there's been, it's been a busy week. In all his cases, there's been action this week. Trump almost dared the judge to throw him in jail, saying, you know, saying he would gladly spend time in jail if it meant defending the First Amendment. Now, that might have been more of a political statement, yes. But why don't we move on to the classified documents case in Florida, where the former president is accused of mishandling sensitive documents after he left the White House and then not cooperating with authorities during their investigation? The judge in that case, indefinitely postponed the trial date this week? Why is that? Well, essentially, there's too many competing motions right now for the, for the May 20th trial date to go forward. And I think both sides

have realized that, and the judge has two, and basically said, we can't get this all done before May 20th. So right now, there's six pending motions that we know about, and two more that have been filed under seal that we don't know about, that have not been issued. And on top of that, the defense attorneys are now asking for more details about how evidence was collected and preserved when the FBI agents raided Maralago and seized those boxes. The defense is saying that the FBI agents did not catalog where in each boxes, in each box the classified documents were found. So that issue of sequencing, the defense is also raised and is pretty upset about it in claiming that it might be. potentially be a Brady violation. So there's a lot of issues going on here. And that trial, especially because of the classified documents in the requirement to follow the Classified

Information Procedures Act, is going to take a while. The idea that that could go to trial this year, I think, is pretty far-fetched. So we're going to have some, there's a lot of motions to work through in probably a lot more motions that'll be filed before that, before that case gets underway. Thank you, Brett. Now, in the 2020 election interference case in Georgia, an appeals court agreed to review the trial judge's ruling that district attorney Fannie Willis could remain on the case after explosive evidence that she had an ongoing affair with her top prosecutor. Tell us what's happening here. So this case is also a bogged down. Maybe not. quite as bad as the Miami case, the Florida case, but there's also issues here, and I don't see

this one going to trial anytime soon. Because of a relationship that District Attorney Fonnie Willis had with the lead prosecutor on the case, the judge initially ruled that Willis could stay on the case as long as the lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade resigned. Wade did resign, but now Trump has appealed the judge's decision and the Georgia Court of Appeals has agreed to take up that case. There could be a fairly lengthy delay while the higher court takes that up. And depending on what their decision is, it could have some pretty significant implications for this case, too. The fourth case against Trump, Brett, not necessarily any new developments this week, but that's the case in Washington, D.C., related to, you know, the January 6th happenings at the U.S. Capitol on Trump's alleged involvement in inciting that. But that's largely seen too because of Trump's claims that he had presidential immunity that going to the U.S. Supreme Court, that that's unlikely to go to trial this year, briefly,

right. Yeah, that's right. So because of the delays there and still waiting on the Supreme Court to issue a decision there, there's a good chance that that also may not go. Depending on when the Supreme Court rules, then we'll have a better idea on where the D.C. case goes. but until then, that case is essentially on pause and frozen. Brett, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with these stories and more at thecentersquare.com.