Judge fines Trump $15,000, threatens jail for gag order violation
THE judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal hushmoney trial fined him $US9000 ($NZ15,000) for contempt of court yesterday and said he would consider jailing him if he continued to violate a gag order. In a written order, Justice Juan Merchan said the fine might not be enough to serve as a deterrent and lamented he did not have the authority to impose a higher penalty.
‘‘Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate wilful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment.’’
Merchan had imposed the gag order to prevent Trump from criticising witnesses and others involved in the case.
The judge fined Trump $US1000 for each of nine online statements that he said violated his order not to criticise witnesses or other participants in the trial. Prosecutors had flagged 10 posts as possible violations.
The posts, made between April 10 and April 17, included an article calling his former lawyer Michael Cohen a ‘‘serial liar’’.
Cohen is expected to be a prominent witness in the trial. Another post quoted a Fox News pundit who claimed ‘‘undercover liberal activists’’ were trying to sneak on to the jury.
Merchan rejected Trump’s argument that he could not be held liable for ‘‘reposts’’ of material he did not write himself.
Trump does not rule out building detention camps on US soil for migrants in the country illegally if he wins a second White House term, he told Time magazine in an interview published yesterday.
He was asked whether he would build new detention camps as part of his campaign pledge to carry out the biggest deportation of migrants in the country illegally.
‘‘I would not rule out anything, but there wouldn’t be that much of a need for them’’ because the plan was to deport the illegal migrants back to their home countries as quickly as possible. He would use National Guard troops to assist in his planned deportation efforts, but also did not rule out deploying active military forces to help. — Reuters