Gag Order Hearing Is Heated as Judge Considers Citing Trump for Contempt
The judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s trial in Manhattan held a fiery hearing on Tuesday about whether to find Mr. Trump in criminal contempt for repeatedly violating the provisions of a gag order.
While the judge, Juan M. Merchan, did not issue an immediate ruling, he engaged in a heated back-and-forth with one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, scolding him for his failure to offer any facts in his defense of the former president.
“You’ve presented nothing,” Justice Merchan told the lawyer, Todd Blanche, adding soon after: “You’re losing all credibility with the court.”
Justice Merchan’s rebuke came moments after prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office had complained that Mr. Trump willfully violated the gag order by making 10 public statements on social media and on his campaign website that attacked two likely witnesses and the jury.
The prosecutors pointed to Mr. Trump’s attacks on Michael Cohen, a lawyer who had helped Mr. Trump arrange hush payments to a porn star to stop her from speaking about a sexual encounter she said she had had with Mr. Trump. The prosecutors also told Judge Merchan that a post Mr. Trump had made going after the woman, Stormy Daniels, violated the gag order.
Prosecutors flagged another post for Justice Merchan, saying it was even more troubling. In it, Mr. Trump had quoted a Fox News commentator, Jesse Watters, denigrating potential jurors in the case as “undercover liberal activists.”