On the eve of Tuesday’s contempt hearing in New York to examine whether Donald Trump repeatedly violated the gag order in his criminal trial, the indicted former president appeared to do so yet again, criticizing the jury as being from “a purely Democrat area” and lamenting that it’s a “very unfair situation” for him.
Trump began by taking aim at Judge Juan Merchan, echoing comments he made last week. “This judge—who is a totally conflicted person, by the way, he should not be the judge of this case, he’s so conflicted, nobody’s ever been as conflicted as him, just about—but this judge said I can’t get away from the trial. You know he’s rushing the trial,” Trump said Monday night on Outside the Beltway, a radio show on Real America’s Voice, before moving on to the jury.
“That jury was picked so fast—95 percent Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrats. You think of it as just a purely Democrat area,” the former president added. “It’s a very unfair situation, that I can tell you.” Trump did not cite a source for his claims.
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It was only hours prior that Trump tested the gag order, which bars him from commenting on jurors, witnesses or potential witnesses, and attorneys, court staff, or their family members. Outside the courtroom during a break in Monday’s proceedings, Trump talked about Michael Cohen and former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz—both potential witnesses.
Before the gag order was expanded earlier this month, Trump exploited it to criticize Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter.
Reacting to Trump’s jury-related comments, former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann said he was “clearly goading” Merchan.
“The fact that he’s doing something that appears by all accounts to be a direct violation of the order as late as tonight in advance of a 9:30 hearing on violations with respect to witnesses and a violation with respect to jurors—both…are things that a judge is going to care tremendously about,” Weissmann said, adding that it’s likely that Merchan will agree with prosecutors that Trump has violated some part of the gag order.
“He could impose the fine that is obviously negligible and saber-rattle about what’s next,” Weissmann continued. But he advised Merchan to “leave aside politics” and treat Trump’s violations just like “any other defendant.”
“We have seen the legal system bend over so far to accommodate Donald Trump. He is not being treated worse. He is being treated so much better, whether you’re talking about [the Department of Justice] or whether you’re talking about all of the criminal cases,” Weissmann said, on the same day that Fox News host Jesse Watters—who himself has sowed doubt about the jury—whined about Trump’s trial being “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Merchan, Weissmann said, wouldn’t need to impose jail time.
“But he can really do—like a child—give him a time out. He can step back and be kept in the pens in the courthouse,” he said, before warning that an insufficient response will incentivize Trump to make similar comments threatening the integrity of the trial.
“I think this is clearly like a child testing what will happen, and it’s at the very outset of the case. If there isn’t a firm hand right now and the rule of law isn’t imposed, it really is a terrible message in terms of how the trial is going to go forward because he’s going to continue doing this,” Weissmann said.
“And if there are jurors he doesn’t like, he could attack them,” he cautioned. “If he’s going to seek a mistrial by his antics, that’s something he could try. So the court—who is extremely experienced—is going to have to be really careful about what exactly is the sanction he’s going to impose tomorrow.”
