Donald Trump is on trial in New York for falsifying business records, but if you really want to appreciate just how far removed the rule of law is from the essence of Trumpism, you could have listened to the brief contempt hearing held Tuesday morning, out of the jury’s earshot, before the trial resumed.
At the request of prosecutors, Justice Juan Merchan earlier this month imposed a gag order on Trump, who has a bad habit of attacking anyone and everyone involved in his criminal cases, from prosecutors to witnesses to jurors to the judge and even the judge’s family members. To go by Trump’s recent activity on Truth Social, the order hasn’t worked. Prosecutors pointed to 11 different posts that they said violated the order, including references to two prosecution witnesses as “sleaze bags” and an attack on the jury pool that his lawyers claimed was a repost of comments by a Fox News host.
First things first: In criminal trials, process is everything. Trump is innocent until proven guilty, like any criminal defendant, and there is a process for making that determination. It involves the cooperation of many key players, including regular Americans who are there by duty, not choice. By attacking those people, Trump is making a mockery of the justice system and endangering real people’s lives.
Constant threats and insults against his perceived enemies are Trump’s stock in trade, of course; in the political world, he relies on them like other politicians rely on baby-kissing. It’s coarse and juvenile, but it’s not illegal.
In court, it’s a different matter. There are consequences for behavior like this. “I have never seen a criminal defendant go out and attack the process and the actors in the process while the trial was going on, while a jury was in the box,” Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor now with Protect Democracy, told me.
On Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers sought to explain away his posts as protected speech, but surely they know better. So does Justice Merchan, who was clearly out of patience and told them their arguments were “losing all credibility with the court.”
Trump may well come out of this contempt hearing with nothing more than a few thousand dollars in fines and an even sterner warning against similar behavior in the future. But the courts — and the American people — are watching and learning. Trump’s refusal to stop, even pursuant to an explicit court order, tells you all you need to know about the incompatibility of the man and the government he seeks to lead.
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