Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday came down hard on Trump lawyer Todd Blanche’s attempts to spin former President Donald Trump’s apparent violations of a previously issued gag order that prevented him from publicly attacking witnesses in his hush-money trial. As reported by Inner City Press’ Matthew Russell Lee, Merchan appeared to lose his patience when Blanche tried to argue that Trump simply promoting an article that attacked witness Michael Cohen didn’t run afoul of the gag order because Trump was simply passing along something said by someone else.
“How does his account work?” Merchan asked Blanche of the former president’s Truth Social account. “There’s a group of folks that look for articles they think President Trump’s audience should know about,” Blanche replied. “It’s not passive,” Merchan noted. “Someone had to do something.”
Merchan then expressed incredulity at what Blanche appeared to be arguing. READ MORE: GOP has gone rancid—and it isn’t fair decent people have to keep cleaning up after them
“Is your client saying he thought reposting couldn’t violate the gag order?” he asked him. “You’ve presented nothing.”
Blanche then seemed to challenge Merchan to call Trump to testify himself about his own motivations and reasonings for his social media posts. “Do you want me to put President Trump on the stand?” Blanche asked. “Is that was you’re asking for?”
A short time after this, as reported by legal journalist Adam Klasfeld, Blanche insisted to Merchan that “President Trump is being very careful to comply” with the gag order, to which Merchan replied, “Mr. Blanche, you are losing all credibility.”
Trump has been ranting for weeks about the gag order placed on him, as he says that restricting his ability to attack witnesses and jurors during a criminal trial violates his First Amendment rights, despite the fact that such orders are placed on criminal defendants as a matter of routine.
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s Florida classified documents criminal trial has unsealed a trove of documents related to the FBI’s investigation into the former president as well as the agency’s raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach in 2022. The documents, unsealed by Judge Aileen Cannon, reveal the personnel involved in the raid and how it played out. One document shows that the operation was nicknamed “Plasmic Echo,” Fox News reported.
“This document contains information that is restricted to case participants,” the document reads, adding, “PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling Classified or National Defense Information, Unknown Subject; Sensitive Investigation Matter.”
Also read: Text messages reveal previously unknown details in Trump trial: report
Another document shows Attorney General Merrick Garland approving the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents from his time as president. One document reveals that agents entered a safe at Mar-a-Lago and took the seized documents back to D.C. The agents involved in the raid consisted of “four agents from the FBI WFO, one FBI Headquarters personnel, 25 agents from the FBI Miami Field Office, one DOJ Counterintelligence and Export Control Section attorney and one attorney from the United States Attorneys Office Southern District of Florida,” according to Fox News.
“A search warrant, 22-mj-8332-BER, issued in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on August 5, 2022, was executed at 1100 South Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida 33480 at 10:33 a.m. on August 8, 2022,” the document reads. “Prior to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team’s entry onto the MAL premises, FBI leadership informed and coordinated with local United States Secret service (USSS) leadership. Local USSS facilitated entry onto the premises, provided escort and access to various locations within, and posted USSS personnel in locations where the FBI team conducted searches,” it read.
CONTINUE READING Show less
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial said the former president violated a gag order 10 times, but they did not seek jail time as a sanction. During a Tuesday morning hearing, Assistant District Attorney Chris Conroy explained how Trump had attacked jurors, prospective jurors, and potential witnesses. “What happened here is precisely what this order was designed to prevent, and the defendant doesn’t care,” Conroy explained. “We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty, yet the defendant seems to be angling for that.”
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden’s cognitive impairments are different
Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, appeared to be defiant. “Just to set the record very straight and clear: Pres. Trump does, in fact, know what the gag order allows him to do and not allow him to do,” Blanche told New York Justice Juan Merchan.
It was not clear when Merchan would rule on the violations.
CONTINUE READING Show less
From inside the courtroom on Tuesday, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin revealed that Judge Juan Merchan was “losing his patience” with Donald Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche. In a testy morning hearing into whether Trump has violated a gag order put in place to stop him attacking members of the jury and witnesses, the judge reamed off examples of attacks — with likely witnesses in his targets including Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, among others.
Blanche, meanwhile, tried to explain away Trump’s actions. Rubin explained from the courtroom that the judge asked Blanche to give him an example of Trump’s intentions in one of his posts, and he consistently failed to do so, leading Merchan to react.
“Judge Merchan is losing his patience,” MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard said, reading text messages from Rubin. Merchan is “accusing Blanche of not answering his questions. So we’re just three social media posts through the ten, and Judge Merchan is clearly frustrated with the attorney for Donald Trump’s lack of ability to articulate on behalf of his own client his intention with those social media statements.”
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist explains how Trump is using existential fear to win the election
“I am asking a question,” Merchan said, according to Rubin. “I keep asking you over and over to give me an example, and I’m not getting an answer.”
Merchan went on to say that it was 10:30 a.m., and they’d been debating “for an hour now, and he’s looking for an answer.” See the report below or at the link here.
‘You’re not giving me an answer’: Judge loses his patience with Trump lawyer youtu.be
CONTINUE READING Show less
