A CNN panel on Tuesday expressed concern that the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s trial probably will not jail him for alleged gag order violations.
Judge Juan Merchan has placed the former president under a gag order that prohibits him from making statements about witnesses, prosecutors other than the district attorney, court staff, their families and prospective jurors, which prosecutors allege Trump has breached multiple times. Merchan scheduled a hearing Tuesday to determine whether Trump violated the order. (RELATED: MSNBC Legal Analyst ‘Really Nervous’ Trump’s Comments Outside Courthouse Could Sway Jurors)
“I think it’s fairly predictable what will happen in the immediate future,” CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said. “The judge is going to come back at some point and say, ‘I find these statements you made do violate my gag order, maybe all 11 of them, and therefore, I fine you $11,000.’ The max you’re allowed to fine someone under New York law is $1,000. But my question is, what‘s the judge going to do about the next time? I mean, he’s clearly going to reprimand Donald Trump, but he has such limited tools.”
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“All he can do is keep fining him $1,000 per instance,” he added. “Trump doesn’t care about that. Or ultimately he can lock him up for up to 30 days, but I just think Donald Trump has calculated, probably correctly, that that’s just not in play here. So how is the judge going to keep this from spinning out of control?”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg recently pushed for the judge to warn Trump he could face 30 days in jail if he breaches the gag order in the future. The court filing also urged the judge to hold the former president in contempt for previous alleged violations.
“Well, he’s not going to lock him up. That’s clear,” host Jake Tapper said. “Is there any way to control him or is this just gonna be the way that, going forward, the judge and everyone is gonna have to deal with it and maybe fine after fine after fine?”
Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman suggested on Tuesday Merchan place Trump under house arrest with an ankle bracelet unless he changes his behavior.
“If I were the judge, what I would do is I would give him two weeks of home confinement with an ankle bracelet, so that he could not go anywhere other than to and from court with the proviso, if he’s a good boy in those two weeks and he doesn’t violate the gag order, we can take off the ankle bracelet,” Akerman said. “That’s what I would do. That would give him an incentive to clean up his act because if he wants to get out there and campaign or do anything besides going to this trial on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays, this would be a major incentive for him to clean up his act.”
Trump is on trial facing 34 felony counts of allegedly falsifying business records related to payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election for her silence about an alleged affair.
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