The judge in former president Donald Trump’s hush-money trial said lead lawyer was “losing all credibility” during a series of testy courtroom exchanges on Tuesday morning in which Mr. Trump’s defence argued he should not be held in contempt of court.
Prosecutors in the case had asked Judge Juan Merchan to hold Mr. Trump in contempt for repeatedly attacking witnesses and prospective jurors on social media and his campaign website.
Justice Merchan reserved his decision on the motion, but not before lacing into Todd Blanche, the head of Mr. Trump’s legal team.
Justice Merchan told Mr. Blanche that he had failed to provide specifics to back up his argument that Mr. Trump’s comments were not violations of a gag order prohibiting Mr. Trump from intimidating witnesses, prosecutors, court staff or the judge’s family.
When Mr. Blanche asserted that Mr. Trump is “being very careful to comply with your honour’s rules,” Justice Merchan cut him off. “You’re losing all credibility with the court,” the judge said.
At another point, Justice Merchan asked Mr. Blanche repeatedly to produce case law supporting his position and to point to specific political attacks to which Mr. Trump was responding in his posts. Mr. Blanche did not produce either, and asked the judge what exactly he wanted.
“I’m asking the questions, okay?” Justice Merchan replied. “I’m going to determine whether your client is in contempt. So don’t try to turn it around.”
Prosecutor Chris Conroy asked Justice Merchan to impose a fine of US$1,000 for each of 10 statements by Mr. Trump and order him to remove them.
“The defendant has violated this order repeatedly and he hasn’t stopped,” Mr. Conroy told the court. “The court has warned the defendant that his attacks on witnesses clearly violate the order.”
One post at issue by Mr. Trump on Truth Social, his social media platform, refers to Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, likely key prosecution witnesses, as “two sleazebags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly.”
Ms. Daniels is a porn star who says she and Mr. Trump once had sex. Mr. Cohen is Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, who arranged the payoff to Ms. Daniels that is at the centre of the trial.
In another post last week, Mr. Trump complained about the jury selection process. “They are currently catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury,” he wrote.
The safety and anonymity of jurors has already been at issue in the case. Last week, one juror dropped out after she said her friends and family had figured out that she was involved in the trial. The court had prospective jurors answer detailed questions about themselves whose answers can easily be used to discover their identities.
Mr. Blanche argued that Mr. Trump’s postings were responding to political attacks and therefore not covered by the gag order. His attacks on Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels, he said, “were in direct response to posts made by those witnesses, not about their testimony.”
In other cases, Mr. Blanche said, Mr. Trump was merely reposting articles and comments form other sources.
Justice Merchan did not appear to believe either argument. He asked Mr. Blanche how these other articles came to be on Mr. Trump’s social media. When Mr. Blanche replied that they were chosen by Mr. Trump’s team and posted there, the judge replied: “Calling it a report and suggesting that, because somebody else wrote it and it miraculously appears on your client’s account, your client washes his hands of it?”
Justice Merchan also asked Mr. Blanche to produce specific examples of attacks from Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels that Mr. Trump was responding to. While Mr. Cohen has criticized Mr. Trump on Twitter and his podcast, Mr. Blanche did not cite any specific examples.
Mr. Conroy said he plans to bring a separate contempt application later in the day concerning Mr. Trump’s comments to reporters in the hallway outside court Monday, when, after Mr. Blanche delivered an opening statement attacking Mr. Cohen’s credibility, Mr. Trump continued the argument.
“When are they going to look at all the lies that Cohen did in the last trial?” Mr. Trump said. “He got caught lying. Pure lying. And when are they going to look at that?”
Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to his role in the hush-money scheme, as well as to lying to Congress to cover it up. Since then, he has been co-operating with prosecutors in their case against Mr. Trump.
