We’re about to find out if Donald Trump, the insurrectionist former president on trial in Manhattan for falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 election, has any capacity for self-control.
While history would argue at length that he does not, Trump has never been one public tantrum away from spending the night behind bars. But Justice Juan Merchan read him the riot act before the jury entered the courtroom Monday morning for the opening of this week’s testimony:
Justice Merchan is speaking directly to Trump, in an extraordinary moment. He tells him he’s finding him in contempt of the gag order a 10th time, but that the $1,000 per instance fines aren’t working and that he has to consider jail. “The last thing” he wants to do is put Trump in jail, the judge says, adding, “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well.”
Justice Merchan tells Trump his ongoing violation of his gag order is a “direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue." He says he wants him to understand he will put him in jail if he has to.
It’s worth underscoring what a stunning moment this was. I have never seen anybody warn Trump, to his face, about the prospect of incarceration. He’s now sitting quietly, frowning, still seemingly absorbing that message from the judge.
Trump the Perpetual Victim likes to whine about our “two-tiered system of justice.” If a guy who has been allowed to violate a gag order 10 times without jail time is in the lower tier of justice, those upper-tier defendants must be getting court-assigned personal assistants and a clothing stipend.
For all his phony tough-guy posturing and farcical Nelson Mandela analogies, Donald Trump does not want to be locked in a jail cell, even one with an ocean view and veranda. (Which would be something Melania could relate to!) Now Trump knows that Merchan, who has kept him on a tight leash in court, has had enough.
If Trump’s gonna blow, it just may be soon. While I’m not certain of the prosecution’s witness schedule, we could see Michael Cohen and/or Stormy Daniels being sworn in later this week. Their testimony — and their very presence in the same courtroom as the defendant — should pose a challenge to Trump’s arguably less than robust equanimity.
While I’m not a gambling man, I wonder what the Vegas over/under is for how many days before Trump violates the gag order?
The testimony Monday was dry but critical to the prosecution’s case. Most significantly, Jeffrey McConney, a comptroller for the Trump Organization, tied reimbursement payments to Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen directly to Trump. Cohen had transferred his own money into a shell account to pay Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged fling with Trump, with the understanding that Trump would pay him back.
McConney makes clear that starting in March 2017, these checks reimbursing Michael Cohen began coming out of Trump’s personal bank account.
The significance of this testimony to the prosecution’s case seems to have eluded Trump, who “appeared to give [McConney] two fist pump gestures as he left the stand.” Dude, he just sank you!
Falsified invoices, ledger entries, and checks were presented to the jury, many with written instructions from McConney and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allan Weisselberg, who is doing time at Rikers Island for committing perjury on behalf of Donald Trump in a recent civil fraud case.
Trump, however, doesn’t care whether 76-year-old Weisselberg was the fall guy for him. Trump doesn’t care that Peter Navarro, who is 74, also is in prison because of him. If Trump could hang all of this on McConney, he would do that in a heartbeat. Let the numbers guy go to prison!
Even Hope Hicks isn’t safe. Trump will drag down everybody if he has to because he is increasingly desperate, delusional, and demented. And he doesn’t care about anyone other than himself.
(From Project Orange: Saving Democracy From the Trump-MAGA Cult)