Judge Warns Trump: Keep This Up and You’ll Be in Jail

Donald Trump’s repeated violations of the gag order in his hush-money trial have reached their limit, Judge Juan Merchan said Monday, warning the former president that jail time would come next.

A contempt of court hearing was held for Trump Monday morning, where Merchan noted that $1,000 fines were not deterring the former president.

“Because this is now the tenth time that this Court has found Defendant in criminal contempt, spanning three separate motions, it is apparent that monetary fines have not, and will not, suffice to deter Defendant from violating this Court’s lawful orders,” Judge Merchan wrote in his ruling, adding that any following violations would result in jail time.

Last week, Trump’s attorney Susan Necheles tried to convince Merchan to approve articles before Trump would post them on his Truth Social account so he wouldn’t violate the gag order, but was rebuffed by Merchan.

“I think the best advice you can give your client is, ‘When in doubt, steer clear,’” Merchan said. Trump is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly paying off adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to try and cover up an affair with her.

A Republican representative on Friday appeared to applaud racist taunting against a pro-Palestine protest at the University of Mississippi.

A group of students organized a protest against Israel’s war in Gaza at Ole Miss, as the university is commonly called, on Thursday. The group was calling for the school to divest from companies aligned with Israel, and the university had approved the protest. Protesters, though, were met—and reportedly outnumbered—by counterprotesters who jeered and laughed at them, even making racist monkey noises and gestures at a Black female protester.

Another video from a different angle shows the counterprotesters yelling “Lizzo! Lizzo!” as well as expletives and weight-based slurs at the woman.

But to Representative Mike Collins, a Republican from Georgia, this was all positive.

“Ole Miss taking care of business,” the congressman tweeted, sharing video taken from Richard Hanania, who has been criticized for espousing racist views.

Collins wasn’t the first Republican to seemingly praise the counterprotesters, though. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves tweeted video the day before, saying the audio “warms my heart.”

While this protest ended peacefully as student protesters were evacuated away from danger, other demonstrations across the country, such as at UCLA and Columbia University, were met with violence from counterprotesters and law enforcement. In those cases, politicians also missed the point of the demonstrations, directing their criticism against those protesting a war entering its seventh month that has killed at least 34,622 people, including more than 14,500 children.

Hope Hicks dished out another doozy against her former boss Donald Trump Friday afternoon.

While testifying on the stand, Hicks—a former Trump Organization employee turned Trump 2016 campaign press secretary turned White House aide—revealed that Trump had been in communication with his former fixer Michael Cohen about hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. The thing is, Cohen had told The New York Times in February 2018 that he had sent the $130,000 payment by his own volition, and out of his own pocket.

Cohen claimed at the time that Trump had no knowledge of the payments. But Hicks recalled Trump saying that Cohen had “felt like it was his job to protect him” and “that’s what he was doing and he did it out of the kindness of his own heart and he never told anybody about it.”

But, when pressed by the prosecution, Hicks confessed that such a charitable act did seem “out of character” for the bombastic attorney.

“I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person,” Hicks said.

Still, even after claiming he had no knowledge of the hush-money payments, Trump understood it was prudent to bury the whole thing before the election.

“Mr. Trump’s opinion was that it was better to be dealing with it now and it would’ve been bad to have that story come out before the election,” she said.

This piece of testimony could prove crucial, according to MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin. Even though Hicks did not call Trump a liar outright, she did reveal that his current claims about the hush-money deal are dubious at best.

Earlier in the day, Hicks described Trump as a boss who was “very involved” and that the communications arm of Trump’s 2016 presidential bid was always “following his lead.”

Hicks continued to say that she had met David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and former CEO of its parent company, American Media Inc., several times, and knew of Pecker as a “friend of Mr. Trump.” She noted that she had been present for Trump’s phone calls with Pecker, including ones about some of the Enquirer’s hit pieces on Trump’s GOP opponents in the 2016 race.

Notably, Hicks specified that although she is testifying in the trial under subpoena, she is paying for her own legal representation and hasn’t spoken to Trump in nearly two years.

The 2016 release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which Donald Trump made lewd comments about women to TV host Billy Bush, bothered Trump and his campaign a lot more than they told the public, his former aide Hope Hicks testified in court Friday during Trump’s hush-money trial. 

Hicks served as press secretary for the campaign during that time. She testified that Trump learned about the tape when then–Washington Post reporter David Farenthold emailed the campaign with a partial transcript, asking for comment. The prosecutor asked Hicks what her first reaction was, to which Hicks replied that she was “very concerned.” 

She forwarded the email with “FW: URGENT WashPost query” as the subject line to campaign leaders Jason Miller, David Bossie, Kellyanne Conway, and Steve Bannon. The text of the email read:

FLAGGING.  

1) [...] Need to hear the tape to be sure.

2) [...] Deny, deny, deny.”

Hicks testified that she thought the tape’s release would be a “massive story” leading the news cycle for at least several days. After watching Trump’s video response to the tape, which was posted to Twitter (now called X) on October 8, 2016, Hicks agreed with a prosecutor’s statement that Trump’s words downplaying the tape were very different from the actions the campaign took. She noted that stories about the tape even pushed a Category 4 hurricane out of the news. 

Prosecutors hope Hicks’s testimony can help them make the case that Donald Trump’s campaign went into a crisis mode after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, giving them reason to try to cover up other allegations of Trump’s extramarital affairs. However, some of those allegations were deemed inadmissible in the trial by Judge Juan Merchan. 

Earlier in her testimony, Hicks noted that Trump had a close, hands-on role in the campaign’s words and statements.

“He knew what he wanted to say and how we wanted to say it. We were always following his lead,” Hicks said. 

Trump is accused of trying to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election by paying her off through his attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, and is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Daniels and Cohen have yet to testify, so the most damaging information to Trump’s case may be yet to come. 

Another star witness in Donald Trump’s first criminal trial has opened up about the former president’s involvement in his staff’s communications, adding yet another dent to Trump’s legal defense.

Hope Hicks, a former Trump Organization employee turned Trump White House communications director, testified on Friday that she spoke with Trump every day while serving as the press secretary to his presidential campaign. She said that he was “very involved” and that the communications arm of Trump’s 2016 bid was always “following his lead.”

“He knew what he wanted to say and how we wanted to say it,” Hicks told the court. “We were always following his lead.”

Hicks continued to say that she had met David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and former CEO of its parent company, American Media Inc., several times, and knew of Pecker as a “friend of Mr. Trump.” She noted that she had been present for Trump’s phone calls with Pecker, including ones about some of the Enquirer’s coverage, including hit pieces on one of Trump’s GOP opponents in the 2016 race, Dr. Ben Carson.

But she also said that she didn’t recall being in attendance at meetings in Trump Tower between Pecker and her former boss.

“Were you ever in and out of [Trump’s] office when Mr. Pecker was meeting with Mr. Trump at Trump Tower?” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo asked.

“I don’t have a recollection of that, but it’s certainly possible,” she said.

Still, Hicks’s testimony about her boss’s behavior runs counter to a portrait of Trump that his legal defense has tried to paint—claiming that Trump was thoroughly distanced from any knowledge of hush-money payments to his alleged mistress, porn actress Stormy Daniels, or any attempt to bury her story.

Notably, Hicks specified that although she is testifying in the trial under subpoena, she is paying for her own legal representation and hasn’t spoken to Trump in nearly two years.

Trump is accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee 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.