Trump's Trials - After 10th gag order violation, judge threatens Trump with jail

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

For this episode of Trump's Trials, All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro speaks with NPR's Andrea Bernstein.Judge Juan Merchan says former President Donald Trump has violated a gag order in his New York criminal trial for a 10th time. Merchan threatened the next violation could land the presidential candidate in jail. Topics include:- Judge Merchan's reaction to Trump's latest violation- How this admonishment differs from other times Trump has tussled with judges- Highlights from Monday's testimonies Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for new episodes each Saturday.Sign up for sponsor-free episodes and support NPR's political journalism at plus.npr.org/trumpstrials.Email the show at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Trump's Trials from NPR. I'm Scott Detro. We love Trump! This is a persecution. He actually just stormed out of the courtroom. We love him! Innocent till proven guilty in a court of law. Our regular episodes come out every Saturday, but there's some news in one of former President Trump's cases today.

So we're going to share a story that just aired on NPR, and then we'll be back with more in our usual episode on Saturday. Thanks for listening. Pro-Palestinian protests have popped up on college campuses across the country. But from the eyes of students, what are we missing? From the outside, these protests are painted as really violent when that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm Brittany Luce, host of NPR's It's Been A Minute, and I'm inviting you to hear from

student journalists who see what the rest of us cannot on It's Been A Minute from NPR. You're listening to Trump's Trials. I'm Scott Detro. And now here's Ari Shapiro. A judge in New York delivered sharp words to Donald Trump today. In the New York hush money criminal trial, Judge Juan Marchand told Trump

he would send the defendant to jail if the former president continues to violate his gag order. NPR's Andrea Bernstein was there in the courtroom, hi Andrea. Hey Ari. What prompted this latest warning? Last week, Judge Marchand found that Trump had violated his order not to disparage witnesses

nine times. That is, he found Trump in criminal contempt beyond a reasonable doubt, nine times over. This morning, first thing, Mershon took the bench and looked directly at Trump, telling him he found him in criminal contempt for the tenth time, this time for disparaging the jurors. Marchand then said, quote, it appears as if the thousand dollar fines are not serving as a deterrent, and added, the last thing I want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the future president of the United States.

So how explicit was the implication that he might send Trump to jail if he continues to defy the gag order? So Marchand said he was aware that incarcerating the former president would be disruptive to the case, the court officers and the Secret Service who would accompany Trump to jail as they do everywhere. But Marshan was saying that just because such a thing seems unimaginable, it could be a very real possibility. He said, at the end of the day, I have a job to do and the job is to protect the dignity of the judicial system. And he added, so much as I do not want to

impose a jail sanction and I've done everything I can to avoid doing so, I want you to know I will. That seems pretty explicit. You've been in many courtrooms with the former president. He has often tussled with judges. How is this different? Right. So in his civil business fraud trial, Trump was forced to pay an increasing series of fines for violating the gag order in that case. And on the very last day of the case, Trump stood up to deliver his own closing arguments, even though he'd already been told not to by the judge. In the defamation case that writer E. Jean Carroll ultimately won, Trump had a direct confrontation with the judge who said he would expel Trump from the courtroom

if he continued muttering things like, that's not true. That judge told Trump, you can't control yourself and Trump shot back, you can't either. But despite those admonishments, I have never heard as serious a threat as I heard this morning to Trump's liberty. Judge Mershon clearly indicated he's prepared to put Trump behind bars if he continues to act in criminal contempt. Obviously, there are all kinds of political implications for that if it were to happen, but tell us what took place in court after that threat.

Yeah, so the bulk of the day was spent with current and former Trump organization employees on the stand, the former controller, Jeffrey McConney and Deb Tarasoff, who to this day runs the Trump Organization accounts payable department. It was less secret payments and alleged illicit liaisons, more pledgers and invoices. However, this is a case about falsifying business records, and it's the first time we've actually seen those records. McConaughey described meeting with his former boss, the former chief financial officer, Alan Weisselberg, where Weisselberg, quote, kind of threw a pat at me and said, take this

down. And by this, he meant the calculations behind what he very explicitly called a reimbursement to Cohen for the payment to Stormy Daniels' lawyer. And the defense response? They highlighted that McConnie had never spoken to Trump himself and had no idea if Trump was involved. But then when Tarasoff came on, the prosecutor displayed 11 checks to Michael Cohen, eight of them signed with that familiar angular Sharpie signature Donald Trump. And Tarasoff described the payment system. She would staple the invoice from Michael Cohen to the check FedEx it to Trump at the

White House, then have it sent back to her. She would send the check to Cohen and file the backup. And here's Andrea Bernstein. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Trump's Trials from NPR. Keep an eye out for more episodes like this whenever big news happens. And we'll be back later this week with our regular show on Saturday.

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