Donald Trump Held In Contempt For Nine Violations Of His Gag Order, Fined $1,000 For Each

Donald Trump's legal problems compounded further on Tuesday as the judge in his hush money trial decided to hold the ex-president in contempt over several posts he made on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump has called out the gag order on multiple occasions, claiming that he is being prevented from responding to people who talk about him on TV.

The billionaire mogul is presently on trial for allegedly falsifying documents to pay hush money to former adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence.

According to a ruling by Judge Juan Merchan, the presiding judge in Trump's hush money trial, the billionaire mogul is being held in contempt for nine violations of his gag order. He has been fined $1,000 for each.

In Merchan's ruling, he cautioned Trump that he would not tolerate any more violations of the gag order, adding that "if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances," he would impose "an incarceratory punishment" on the 77-year-old.

Per NBC News, the gag order prevents Trump from "making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding" and also "public statements about any prospective juror or any juror."

The original gag order placed on Trump prohibited him from making or directing others to make statements about potential witnesses and jurors.

However, in early April, Merchan expanded the gag order after Trump found a loophole and began targeting family members of people related to the trial.

The former president posted a series of social media posts specifically targeting Lauren Merchan, the judge's daughter.

He claimed that the judge had a conflict of interest because Lauren seemed to be anti-Trump based on her association with Authentic, a digital marketing agency that is known to work with Democratic political candidates.

Things reached a high point when Trump claimed that Lauren used an edited photo of him behind bars as her profile picture on X (formerly Twitter).

At the time, Trump said the photo "makes it completely impossible for me to get a fair trial." Despite Lauren denying being associated with the account, Trump and his supporters doubled down on their claims, alleging that Judge Merchan and his family were biased against the Republican presidential hopeful.

Addressing Trump's attacks, Merchan said, "This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are 'fair game.'"

He added, "It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings. The threat is very real."

On his Truth Social platform, Trump did not mince words while expressing his anger about the gag order placed on him. The former president even went as far as calling Merchan a "Trump-Hating" judge.

He wrote, "This conflicted, Trump-Hating Judge won't let me respond to people that are on TV lying and spewing hate all day long."

Trump continued, "He is running roughshod over my lawyers and legal team. The New York System of 'Justice' is being decimated by critics from all over the World. I want to speak or at least be able to respond. Election Interference! RIGGED, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL! Take off the Gag Order!!!"

Trump called Merchan a "conflicted" judge after he refused his request to be excused from court on April 25, the day the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the former president's claim that he was immune from prosecution.

"He's a very conflicted judge," he said of Judge Merchan while speaking outside the Manhattan courthouse. "He won't allow me to leave here for half a day to go to D.C. and go before the U.S. Supreme Court because he thinks he's superior, I guess, to the Supreme Court."

"We've got a real problem with this judge and a real problem with a lot of things having to do with this trial," Trump continued. "That I can't go to my son's graduation, that I can't go to the U.S. Supreme Court, that I'm not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina campaigning like I should be... it's perfect for the radical-left Democrats."

"That's exactly what they want," Trump added. "This is about election interference, that's all it's about."