Trump fined for violating judge’s ban on attacking witnesses and jurors

Donald Trump “is warned that the court will not tolerate continued deliberate violations of its orders and that, if necessary and appropriate, it will impose a prison sentence”, wrote Judge Juan Merchan, in a decision handed down this Tuesday.

Judge Juan Merchan, who presides over the trial for falsifying accounting records that Donald Trump is facing in a New York court, considered that the former president of the United States violated the so-called “gag order” by making several public statements in his social network, Truth Social, and on his campaign website for this year’s presidential election, in which he attacked the witnesses participating in the trial.

At the beginning of Tuesday morning’s hearing of the trial, which entered its third week, the judge fined Trump a thousand dollars for each infraction – nine in total – the maximum allowed by law.

Trump is on trial for 34 falsifications of accounting documents allegedly used to hide a payment for a sex scandal that occurred before the 2016 presidential campaign.

A sum of 130 thousand dollars (121 thousand euros) was paid to former pornographic film star Stormy Daniels to silence her about a sexual relationship that took place in 2006, when Trump was already married to his wife Melania. The former North American head of state denies the relationship.

Before the trial began, the judge banned Donald Trump from publicly attacking witnesses and jurors to avoid the risk of intimidation.

Regularly through his social network Truth Social, Trump has not spared himself in his attacks, particularly against Stormy Daniels and her former lawyer Michael Cohen, who became his declared enemy and key witness for the prosecution.

Another target has been Jesse Watters, host of the Fox News television channel, with Trump claiming, without evidence, that “they are choosing infiltrated progressive activists who lie to the judge to be part of the jury”.

The day after this statement by the former president, a juror withdrew from the process, citing fear of being recognized.