Trump Starts Day 3 of Hush-Money Trial in the Trumpiest Way Possible

Donald Trump’s disregard for the law seemingly knows no bounds. His latest violation? A judge-mandated gag order.

On Wednesday, Trump, facing trial in Manhattan in his hush-money case, appeared to violate—again—Judge Juan Merchan’s prohibition against making public statements about prospective jurors. He echoed comments made by Fox News host Jesse Watters, who accused jurors of hiding left-wing sympathies during jury selection so as to stack the jury against the former president.

“‘They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump jury,’ Jesse Waters,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

There is, of course, no evidence for the claim that jurors are smuggling in their anti-Trump beliefs. The screening process, which included a questionnaire that asked jurors about their media consumption habits, has turned up potential jurors who have expressed distaste for Trump, but nothing suggests that these jurors have been specifically selected to serve. Trump has maintained, also without evidence, that he cannot receive a fair trial in Manhattan, and has pushed to move the trial to Staten Island, the only New York City borough Trump won as a presidential candidate.

Merchan’s gag order against commenting on jurors is hardly the first imposed on Trump. Merchan has already expanded the gag order after Trump criticized his daughter and ruled that Trump must attend a contempt hearing next about his various alleged gag order violations. Prosecutors have asked Merchan to fine Trump $3,000 for disparaging witnesses.

Trump’s struggle appears not to be with Merchan specifically, but with the very concept of a gag order. Judge Tanya Chutkin imposed one on him in his D.C. election interference trial. So did Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over his civil fraud case. Trump’s legal team has its work cut out for it: Their client faces a total of 91 felony counts and has already lost the civil fraud case. The least they can do is tell him to stay off his phone.

The Senate shot down House Republicans’ attempt to remove Secretary of Homeland Security Antonio Mayorkas from office Wednesday, adjourning his impeachment trial by a 51–49 vote, along party lines. 

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was not happy, claiming that the upper chamber  is setting “a very unfortunate precedent here.” 

“It doesn’t make any difference whether our friends on the other side thought he should have been impeached or not. He was,” McConnell said, taking a shot at the Democratic Party. “And by doing what we just did, we have in effect ignored the directions of the House, which were to have a trial. No evidence, no procedure—this is a day that’s not a proud day in the history of the Senate.” 

McConnell’s comments are completely disingenuous. House Republicans’ reasoning for impeaching Mayorkas is specious at best, as Matt Ford wrote for The New Republic in January, and is clearly aimed at impressing Donald Trump. The two articles put forth by the GOP, “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust,” do not rise to anything resembling a high crime or a misdemeanor, as stated in the Constitution. The charges that Republicans made essentially amounted to policy differences between themselves and the Biden administration. 

Republicans know it’s bogus. Representative French Hill couldn’t even offer any examples of Mayorkas’s guilt to a friendly Fox News audience in February, spewing a word salad about Joe Biden paying a public relations price for failing to “shut the border.” Former Representative Ken Buck also thought impeaching Mayorkas was pointless, as he told Newsmax in February. 

And as for the policy differences on border security and immigration, they are based on a misguided right-wing myth, fueled by breathless media coverage, that the southern U.S. border is being overrun with migrants bringing crime, with no moves to stop it. If that were true, or more importantly, if Republicans actually believed it to be true, they would have agreed to pass the bipartisan border security bill in January instead of shooting it down at Donald Trump’s behest. At the time, McConnell reportedly even told his fellow Republican senators that a deal could undermine Trump’s reelection campaign.

In reality, the impeachment of Mayorkas is another example that Republican rhetoric over the southern U.S. border is just political theater designed to hurt Biden and the Democratic Party. The same fearmongering was trotted out in previous elections and failed. How will it work this time around? 

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is trying to make a buck in any way that it can, from hawking ugly sneakers to hosting parties in Florida. And now, his campaign is attempting to pull off a novel tactic: making money off of Trump’s name and likeness.

In a letter sent to GOP digital vendors on Monday, the Trump campaign is asking down-ballot candidates who use his name, image, and likeness for their own fundraisers to send at least 5 percent of the money raised back to them, Politico reported.

“Beginning tomorrow, we ask that all candidates and committees who choose to use President Trump’s name, image, and likeness split a minimum of 5% of all fundraising solicitations to Trump National Committee JFC. This includes but is not limited to sending to the house file, prospecting vendors, and advertising,” the campaign’s co-managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, wrote in the letter.

Wiles and LaCivita also hinted that sending more money than that could net favors from both the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign.

“Any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump’s campaign and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations,” the letter stated.

It’s the latest moneymaking scheme from the campaign, which not only has to keep up with Joe Biden but also partially funds Trump’s many legal bills. As of late March, almost a third of campaign donations—$27 million—have gone to pay those bills.

Trump also has a huge fine from his fraud trial that he’s appealing, and he couldn’t even get a surety firm to back his appeal until the bond was lowered. His new media company’s stock is plummeting, and he’s not allowed to dump the shares for six months. So far, in order to make some extra cash, he’s resorted to selling golden sneakers and “God Bless the USA” Bibles, and he even has a supporter-backed GoFundMe. Now that he’s taken over the RNC, he probably will use party funds as his own personal bank too.

Donald Trump’s long legal record is very likely going to bite him in his New York hush-money trial.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office filed its Sandoval notice in the case on Wednesday, revealing that it intends to leverage some of Trump’s past legal troubles as evidence of his poor credibility. According to the document, those cases include the New York civil fraud trial in which Trump was ordered to pay nearly half a billion dollars to the state, and the defamation trials brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, who won a payout of $83.3 million.

In addition to those cases, the Sandoval notice also cites the 2023 lawsuit Trump brought against his former 2016 opponent for the presidency, Hillary Clinton. The court in that case fined Trump nearly a million dollars for bringing a “completely frivolous” lawsuit to court “for improper purposes” and found that Trump had repeatedly used the courts to “seek revenge on political adversaries.”

“He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer,” the court wrote in its 2023 determination. “He knew full well the impact of his actions.”

Bragg, noting that the cases had already been cited in a February 22 motion, wrote that “the People hereby give notice that we intend to use the acts identified in those motions to impeach the credibility of the defendant.”

Judge Juan Merchan can trim down the list, deeming some of the cases Bragg wants to cite inadmissible. It is not yet clear when Merchan will issue his final decision.

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.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is backtracking on his statewide book restrictions, signing a bill that will limit how—and who—can propose limits on local reading.

The new law, signed Tuesday, will give non-district residents just one opportunity per month to challenge a book they’d like to restrict access to. According to a February press release, some of the many objections made over the past year were submitted by individuals “who don’t have children learning in Florida.”

According to DeSantis’s office, the new legislation “protects schools from activists trying to politicize and disrupt a district’s book review process.” That includes texts such as Johnny Appleseed, The Giver, and the Bible, all of which DeSantis’s office has previously cited as targets.

“I think what’s happened though, is you have some people who are taking the curriculum transparency, and they’re trying to weaponize that for political purposes,” DeSantis said during a press conference.

Actual residents will, however, retain unlimited opportunities to propose book bans. Local organizations attempting to combat the statewide book restrictions noted that the law is but a paltry gain for book access.

“The point is, HB 1285 is not ‘mission accomplished’ on stopping the needless censorship happening in FL schools, but it might slow it in certain areas,” posted the Florida Freedom to Read Project on X. “So for that, thanks for this small amendment to 1006.28. Let’s tackle this again in 2025.”

Despite repeatedly insisting that his state’s education restrictions don’t amount to a “book ban,” DeSantis has undoubtedly wielded a heavy hand in rewriting Florida’s educational code. In the last few years, DeSantis has banned classroom discussion of gender and sexuality, gutted DEI programs within the state, and, of course, allowed unlimited challenges to which reading texts can be accessed by Florida students.

Just Wednesday, the Florida governor was hard at work in another sphere of education, signing a bill requiring state educators to teach students about the “dangers and evils of Communism.” The legislation will “prepare” students to “withstand indoctrination on Communism at colleges and universities,” and proposes the creation of a museum that covers the “history of communism,” according to a release by DeSantis’s office.

Many of the books targeted under DeSantis’s signature 2022 legislation deal with topics such as race, gender, and sexuality, but others should be far less controversial. Some of the challenges have been over cartoon illustrations of naked goblin butts and even the dictionary.