Breaking News In the New York hush money trial involving
former President Donald Trump,
presiding Judge Juan Merschaan found Mr.
Trump in contempt for 9 violations of his gag order.
Find Him
$9000. Now, in the gag order,
Trump was barred from quote making or directing others to
make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning
their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal
proceeding. NBC News correspondent Rehema Ellis joins us now with
very latest.
So Rehema, walk us through this ruling from Judge Marshawn
and what it means for the former president and
Mr. Cohen. So what this means is that the former
president has been told very specifically by the court that
this is not allowed.
These kinds of posts which you point out leading in
to me that were according to the prosecution making disparaging
remarks about witnesses or potential witnesses was a violation of
the gag order. What the judge has also gone so
far as to say that he is ordering that the
Trump team take down those posts by 2:15 this afternoon.
They have to be gone.
So the prosecution was able to get what it was
looking for since last week and that was an allegation
that the former president had violated 10 *
10 times this gag order that said you cannot say
disparaging remarks about potential witnesses.
That order came out just this morning,
and as I say, and you point out
of the 10, nine of them have been found in
violation of the gag order,
each one
$1000 a fine. That's $9000.
And the posts have to be taken down by 2:15
this afternoon.
Joe. So Raheem, as part of Judge
Marshawn's decision, he says, quote,
the court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its
lawful orders.
I understand he's even threatening jail time here.
I mean, given what we've seen from Trump so far,
could this change his behavior,
what he says moving forward?
Do we have any idea at all how he's reacting
to this?
We don't know exactly how the former president is reacting,
but we do know that the prosecution has to be
somewhat pleased with what the judge has finally said because
they have been asking for several times for there to
be a decision in reference to this allegation of violation
of the of the,
the gag order. I think I want to put up
for you a full screen of what Judge Marshawn has
said,
he said. The defendant is hereby warned that the court
will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders
and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances,
it will impose an incarceratory punishment.
That's pretty severe. How would the court go about doing
that?
It's not clear, but the judge is making it very
clear.
It will consider, and it might impose incarceration as form
of a punishment to force the former president to stop
making these kinds of remarks,
which he has determined now are in violation of the
gag order.
Joe and Rahima, we have to keep in mind,
all this stems from a gang gag order hearing that
took place last week.
I understand there's already another hearing on this issue scheduled
for later this week,
right?
Yeah. In fact, that's scheduled for Thursday,
as we know of right now.
And that's a consideration of four other allegations from the
prosecution that allegedly Donald Trump has violated the gag order
again.
So that will be a separate hearing coming up later
this week.
The judge as of last week at the end of
court on Friday,
he said that was going to happen on Thursday.
Now, in reference to all of this,
how is the judge perceiving the arguments from the defense?
He had said earlier when the defense was trying to
argue that these were just reposts coming from his client
and they should not be a violation.
The judge had told him,
and I quote here reading Judge Marshawn had previously told
Donald Trump's attorney Martin Blanchard that quote,
you are losing all credibility.
What went wrong for the defense here and what were
the big factors that led to the ruling?
Again the judge is saying
all credibility as far as the defense is trying to
present as an argument for why their client should not
be fined for allegations of the of the
violating the gag order. Previously the judge has said
it's not credible with me essentially what the judge has
said.
Joe All right. And a reminder no court tomorrow on
Wednesday.
Rehema Ellis, thank you for bringing us these details on
this breaking news.