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Former President Donald Trump appeared to make it clear on Wednesday that Judge Juan Merchan’s Monday threat to jail him for future violations of his restrictive gag order would be met with defiance.
“Give me liberty or give me death,” Trump wrote Wednesday in an all-caps message on Truth Social, quoting the American Founding Father Patrick Henry.
“It is a really bad feeling to have your Constitutional Right to Free Speech, such a big part of life in our Country, so unfairly taken from you, especially when all of the sleazebags, lowlifes, and grifters that you oppose are allowed to say absolutely anything that they want,” Trump’s post added. “It is hard to sit back and listen to lies and false statements be made against you knowing that if you respond, even in the most modest fashion, you are told by a Corrupt and Highly Conflicted Judge that you will be put in prison, maybe for a long period of time.”
In the Wednesday post, Trump added: “This Fascist mindset is all coming from D.C. It is a sophisticated hit job on Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, ME!”
The post also took aim at Judges Arthur Engoron and Lewis Kaplan, both from New York, labeling them “equally corrupt, only in different ways.”
“What these thugs are doing is an attack on the Republican Party, and our once great nation itself. Our First Amendment must stand, free and strong,” the former president concluded.
Trump signaled this week that he is willing to be locked up for violating Merchan’s gag order in remarks to reporters.
On Monday, Merchan, a known donor to Democratic candidates, cited new examples of Trump violating the order after he fined the 45th president $9,000 last week for similar violations. “Merchan warned Trump that continued violations of the order could result in incarceration—a threat he made again on Monday after fining him the maximum of $1,000 for the most recent violation,” NBC News reported.
“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent,” Merchan said during early proceedings on Monday.
“The last thing I want to do is to put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for you,” he continued, adding that taking that step would be “disruptive to the proceedings.”
However, Merchan warned Trump that “his continued willful violations of this court’s orders threaten the administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.”
Trump later responded outside Merchan’s courtroom.
“I tell you people, you ask me a question, a simple question, I’d like to give it, but I can’t talk about it because this judge has given me a gag order and said you’ll go to jail if you violate it,” he said.
“And frankly, you know what? Our Constitution is much more important than jail. It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day,” he added.
The former president also noted that the trial is expected to last for several more weeks.
“So we just found out. The government said they want two to three more weeks,” he said, per The Epoch Times.. They want to keep me off the trail for two to three more weeks. Now, anybody in there would realize there’s no case; they don’t have a case.”
“This is just a political witch hunt, it’s election interference, and this is really, truly election interference,” he said, claiming that the case was only brought after he announced his campaign.
Trump also criticized the order late last week.
“This judge has taken away my constitutional right,” Trump said in the hallway outside court on Friday morning. “We’re filing, I think today, a constitutional motion. He added, “If somebody says something about me and I’m not allowed to respond, that’s never happened before.”