OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
According to a former federal judge, the former president of the United States might go to jail for disobeying Justice Juan Merchan of the New York Supreme Court’s gag order in the hush money case involving adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Shira Scheindlin, who presided in the Southern District of New York, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday night that Trump has already been given a warning to stop commenting on the case, Newsweek noted.
“The first thing you can do is give a warning. I think that’s been covered,” Scheindlin said. The second step would be a fine, followed by jail, the judge noted further
Justice Juan Merchan amended Trump’s gag order on Monday to include Merchan’s own daughter, Loren Merchan, citing Trump’s history of attacking the family members of judges and attorneys.
“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game,’ for Defendant’s vitriol.”
Scheindlin, who served as a federal judge in Manhattan for over 20 years, predicted that Trump would be fined if he violates the expanded gag order, similar to what Judge Arthur Engoron did in Trump’s New York fraud case.
The next step, she said, very likely could be jail.
“The third step, and it has to happen sometimes with contempt, is actually putting somebody in the cell until they understand that the behavior is absolutely unacceptable,” she told CNN.
Scheindlin added that any judge would be reluctant to jail Trump for contempt.
“Now, is that [jailing Trump] what anybody wants to do? No, because that would only make him a martyr; so nobody really wants to put him in a cell,” she observed.
“He’s again being treated differently than any other defendant because any other defendant would be incarcerated if they did not stop the behavior,” she said. “But we’ve got a problem here… it’s really hard to muzzle him with the threat of incarceration because, as I said, that would only make him a martyr.”
The former president took to his Truth Social platform to complain about the gag order.
“I just was informed that another corrupt New York Judge, Juan Merchan, GAGGED me so that I can not talk about the corruption and conflicts taking place in his courtroom with respect to a case that everyone, including the D.A., felt should never have been brought. They can talk about me, but I can’t talk about them??? That sounds fair, doesn’t it? This Judge should be recused, and the case should be thrown out. There has virtually never been a more conflicted judge than this one. ELECTION INTERFERENCE at its worst!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump also took time on Sunday to blast his political opponents in an all-caps Easter message, including the Democratic jurists involved in his prosecutions.
“Happy Easter to all. Including crooked and corrupt prosecutors and judges that are doing everything possible to interfere with the presidential election of 2024, and put me in prison, including those many people that I completely & totally despise because they want to destroy America, a now failing nation, like ‘deranged’ Jack Smith, who is evil and ‘sick,’ Mrs. Fani (Fauni) Wade, who said she hardly knew the ‘special’ prosecutor, only to find that he spent years ‘loving’ her, long before the Georgia persecution of President Trump began (and thereby making the case against me null, void, and illegal!),” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
