Former president Donald Trump said Saturday that it would be a \u201cgreat honor\u201d to be jailed for violating a gag order, marking an escalation in attacks he\u2019s made against New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and other court officials in a case about to go to trial.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Merchan, the judge overseeing Trump\u2019s hush money trial set to begin on April 15, expanded his gag order against Trump to include both the judge\u2019s family as well as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg\u2019s family. That move came after Trump personally attacked Merchan\u2019s daughter, calling her a \u201cRabid Trump Hater\u201d and suggesting that the judge was \u201ccompromised\u201d because of her work for a Democratic-aligned digital marketing company.<\/p>\n
Writing on the Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump dared Merchan to throw him in jail. He also compared himself again to Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner who became the first president of a post-apartheid South Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the \u2018clink\u2019 for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela \u2014 It will be my GREAT HONOR,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cWe have to Save our Country from these Political Operatives masquerading as Prosecutors and Judges, and I am willing to sacrifice my Freedom for that worthy cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has continued to test the boundaries of the gag order, persistently sharing links to stories on Truth Social that echo his critiques. In a Truth Social post written after the gag order was expanded, Trump also said that Merchan \u201cshould be recused, and the case should be thrown out,\u201d adding that \u201cthere has virtually never been a more conflicted judge than this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
A recent Washington Post analysis of Trump\u2019s social media posts since the start of his campaign in late 2022 shows that he had directly attacked judges or their families by name more than 130 times. Merchan\u2019s gag order doesn\u2019t restrict Trump from attacking the judge or the district attorney directly.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear if the judge will sanction Trump for any of his latest postings. Merchan can fine or jail Trump for violating the gag order. He has also said another consequence could be withholding jurors\u2019 names from Trump\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n
Orders restricting the public statements by criminal defendants are common in judicial proceedings. Trump has been fined before for violating another judge\u2019s gag order in the civil business-fraud lawsuit in New York that resulted in a $350 million penalty plus interest.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign on Saturday called Merchan\u2019s gag order \u201cunconstitutional and un-American\u201d in defending the actions. \u201cPresident Trump has not violated this wrongful edict issued by a partisan operative and will continue to speak truth to power,\u201d Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The trial Merchan is set to oversee this month stems from charges against Trump that allege he faked business records in connection with hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.<\/p>\n
Trump, the GOP\u2019s presumptive presidential nominee, faces a total of 88 charges across four criminal cases. They include 44 federal charges and 44 state charges, all of them felonies. Trump has denied wrongdoing in each case.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time Trump has compared himself to Mandela as a way to portray himself as a victim of political persecution. He told a crowd of supporters in October 2023, \u201cI don\u2019t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I\u2019m doing it for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Biden campaign quickly criticized Trump for his comparison to Mandela, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine being so self-centered that you compare yourself to Jesus Christ and Nelson Mandela all within the span of little more than a week: that\u2019s Donald Trump for you,\u201d the Biden campaign\u2019s director of Black media, Jasmine Harris, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Harris appeared to be referencing another Truth Social post recently made by Trump, where he seemingly compared himself to Jesus days before Easter-related observances while attending a pretrial hearing for his hush money case.<\/p>\n
Trump wrote that someone sent him a text saying, \u201cIt\u2019s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you,\u201d along with a Bible verse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump said Saturday that it would be a \u201cgreat honor\u201d to be jailed for violating a gag order, marking an escalation in attacks he\u2019s made against New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and other court officials in a case about to go to trial. On Monday, Merchan, the judge overseeing Trump\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}