Trump Keeps Digging His Grave Deeper Over Hush Money Trial Gag Order

Donald Trump issued some fresh vitriol against Judge Juan Merchan Tuesday morning, clamoring once again for the gag order imposed on him to be removed, even though he seems to be willfully ignoring it anyway.

“MY TRIAL IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“This conflicted, Trump Hating Judge won’t let me respond to people that are on TV lying and spewing hate all day long,” he continued. “He is running rough shod 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!!!”

The GOP presidential nominee isn’t really forbidden to speak, though. The partial gag order forbids Trump from speaking publicly about courtroom staff, prosecutors, or any of their family members. Comments about jurors are also prohibited, as well as comments about witnesses—but wiggle room still exists within the order that allows Trump to attack Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, or anybody else, for that matter, including his political rivals.

According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Trump may have already violated his gag order several times—including at least one instance in which he seemingly posted while in court.

But none of this should be news to Trump, who so far has been hit with two other gag orders in his prior legal trials. In October, Judge Arthur Engoron silenced the former president after he ushered a wealth of far-right venom onto Engoron’s chief law clerk. Trump was later fined $15,000 for violating the order. Judge Tanya Chutkan also imposed a gag order on Trump in his election interference trial.

Still, the level of punishment for Trump’s disregard of his gag order could vary, according to MSNBC analyst Caroline Polisi, who noted on Monday that it might range from a “tongue lashing” to “monetary sanctions” to actually “putting him in jail.”

“The judge is in a tough spot here,” Polisi said during live coverage of the first day of the trial. “No judge wants to be that, you know, person. That is, the one to throw former President Trump in jail for criminal contempt. I personally just don’t see that happening. But the judge’s hands may be tied here. You know, we’ve seen previous judges issue these sort of escalating sanctions, monetary sanctions.”

Donald Trump had a strange claim at the end of the first day of his hush-money trial: He said that the judge had barred him from attending his son’s high school graduation next month.

“It looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son who’s worked very, very hard and he is a great student,” Trump told reporters outside of Manhattan district court Monday. “It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial.”

Trump’s legal team had filed a motion requesting the former president be allowed to attend the graduation ceremony. Judge Juan Merchan declined to decide the issue on Monday, saying it depends on if everything is running on schedule.

But the thing is, if Trump can’t go, then he has no one to blame but himself. Trump’s legal strategy has been to delay, delay, delay in order to keep the rulings in his many legal cases as late as possible, hopefully past the November election. But now that strategy may backfire on him—but in his personal life.

It’s an unexpected development in the legal saga of the former president who, in addition to his Manhattan hush-money trial, is on trial in Florida for mishandling classified documents; in Washington, D.C., for attempting to overthrow the election; and in Fulton County, Georgia, for interfering in that state’s election.

He’ll be required to be in court for every session of his New York trial—which is standard procedure for criminal trials but beyond the pale to Trump and his Republican supporters—and he’ll only be able to be on the campaign trail every weekend, evening, and Wednesday as long as the case continues. If he misses a day in court, he could even face prison time.

The former president had to know that dragging each case out would eventually cause a scheduling issue between his presidential campaign and his personal life. It’s unprecedented for a former president to face criminal charges, let alone while they are campaigning for reelection, so this is probably not the end of any new, weird developments. In the end, though, if Trump is still in court by the time Election Day comes around in November, it could be bad for his chances of returning to the White House.

Donald Trump’s MAGA disciples were left fuming after the first day of his hush money criminal trial… but all their heat boiled down to one detail: that the GOP presidential nominee was being held to the same legal standards as every other private citizen.

The weeks-long proceeding will require Trump to be in court for every session—something Trump himself has challenged as “election interference” on the basis that it will keep him away from the campaign trail—even though he’ll be permitted to campaign every weekend, evening, and Wednesday during the process. If he fails to appear in court, he could face an arrest warrant.

But that standard expectation for a criminal trial was, apparently, all too much for his allies, with the campaign’s official spokesperson Karoline Leavitt condemning the procedure on Monday as “banana republic tactics.”

New York Representative Elise Stefanik—who has been vying to become Trump’s vice presidential pick—undercut the expectations of New York law, similarly suggesting in a post that Trump was being unfairly treated, when in actuality the judge was just going through the usual motions.

“Corrupt Judge Merchan, a Biden donor whose family member has profited off this case & who illegally gagged President Trump just said ‘If you do not show up, there will be an arrest,’” Stefanik posted. “A 6-8 week show trial... Total election interference.”

In her replies, one attorney reminded the New York lawmaker that Trump was being held to the same standards as any criminal defendant. The rule about presence in court is called the Parker Warning, and it is given to all defendants in New York state.

“Elise. You know that this is a standard charge given to every defendant in every criminal case pending in nys,” wrote Joshua Stein, a law partner at Greenberg & Stein. “Why, if you’re so in the right, do you have to mislead your constituents?”

And Trump’s other GOP followers, such as Florida Representative Byron Donalds, just don’t seem to care if he’s guilty anymore, according to a new report by The Daily Beast which found that just one in 20 interviewed GOP lawmakers showed concern for the possibility that their nominee for the White House might become a convicted felon.

But their perspective wasn’t shared by prospective jurors, one of whom told MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld that they “feel that nobody’s above the law, whether it’s a former president, a sitting president or a janitor.”

Trump is accused of using former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Former Representative George Santos has raised $0 in his campaign to return to the House, and he says it’s for a good reason: to stop people from thinking he’s a grifter.

The New York Republican has a well-established reputation as a serial fabulist whose lies got him expelled from Congress. He is currently facing 23 felony counts for aggravated identity theft, credit card fraud, and illegally receiving unemployment benefits.

A report published Monday by the Daily Beast reveals that Santos hasn’t raised any money in an effort to overcome his reputation as a conman. But according to a Federal Election Commission filing, also released Monday, Santos’s campaign account has spent money without raising any, which isn’t exactly a good sign.

“I will not be raising a single dime until I’m confirmed on the ballot, unlike many in the media speculating I’m only running to ‘grift.’ I’m setting the standard that only confirmed ballot access candidates should raise money,” Santos said in a statement.

Santos is running as an independent against Nick LaLota, a Republican, in New York’s first congressional district. LaLota was one of the first members of Congress, from either party, to call for Santos’s resignation—Santos made no secret of his animosity.

“He’s not well liked. He’s an arrogant person. He’s not a nice guy. He’s cocky,” Santos said of LaLota the day before his expulsion in December. “He’s a traditional meathead, somebody who’s not nice to you for no reason.”

It’s not just LaLota, either: Santos has been on a petty, scorched-earth path since being expelled from Congress, taking shots at several of his ex-colleagues.

The former congressman faces an uphill battle running as an independent. In order to even get on the ballot, he needs to obtain enough petition signatures from district residents—which some legal experts say is unlikely. Based on Santos’s record, outside observers could think it’s another attempt for him to make a few bucks, perhaps to supplement his Cameo earnings.

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla announced Monday that it will be laying off more than 10 percent of its global workforce—at least 14,000 employees—following a catastrophic first quarter, in which the company missed delivery estimates and suffered a year-over-year reduction in sales.

“As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally,” Musk wrote, blaming the cuts on redundancies in a leaked memo to employees first obtained by Electrek. “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.”

While it’s unclear which teams will be most significantly affected by the layoffs, news of the cuts came hand in hand with resignations from some of the company’s top talent.

“I made the difficult decision to move on from Tesla after 18 years yesterday,” Andrew Baglino, Tesla’s senior vice president for energy engineering and powertrain, wrote on Monday. “I am so thankful to have worked with and learned from the countless incredibly talented people at Tesla over the years.”

Stock traders were quick to observe, however, that Baglino had been offloading millions of dollars’ worth of Tesla stock each month for the last several years.

Rohan Patel, Tesla’s vice president of public policy and business development, also put in his two weeks’ notice after the automotive giant announced the cuts, writing his thank-yous to the company’s customers, his fellow employees, his parents, former President Barack Obama, and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk.

“The past 8 years at Tesla have been filled with every emotion—but the feeling I have today is utmost gratitude,” Patel posted on X.

Tesla has been struggling with complaints stemming from myriad issues with its car models, as well as with its latest release, the Cybertruck. The company froze Cybertruck sales on Monday after it was reported that the vehicle’s gas pedal cover had become dislodged, pinning itself against the floor for at least one customer. In 2022, complaints related to the Tesla’s misadvertised driving range became so pervasive that the company developed a secret “Diversion Team” to suppress the noise.

Tesla will deliver its quarter one report on April 23. “Analysts estimate that Tesla will still turn a profit of around 50 cents a share, down from 85 cents a share in Q1 2023,” reported Electrek.