Posted on 04/26/2024 11:46:49 AM PDT by Macho MAGA Man
Judge Juan Merchan on Thursday afternoon said he will consider four new Trump gag order violations as he weighs whether to hold the former president in contempt.
..... Snip.....
[Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule · Merchan signed an Order to Show Cause compelling Trump to attend a hearing on three new alleged gag order violations. (Below 1 & 2) Merchan has yet to rule on the prosecution's earlier motion alleging ten violations and now there are new ones. (3 & 4)
8:19 AM · Apr 26, 2024]
CNN reported:
Judge Juan Merchan said he signed the order to show cause regarding four new violations of a gag order for former President Donald Trump.
He signed the order to show cause from the district attorney for the first 10 violations, too.
This means he will hear the additional four violations they have now added. He hasn’t made a decision yet or held Trump in contempt.
Trump blasted the judge this week as the ‘hush money’ trial played out in a Manhattan court.
“The Gag Order imposed on me, a political candidate running for the highest office in the land, is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Nothing like this has ever happened before. The Conflicted Judge’s friends and party members can say whatever they want about me, but I am not allowed to respond. The Trial is Rigged and should never have been allowed to take place on a charge that virtually every legal scholar and expert say is bogus, THERE IS NO CRIME. This is a Political Witch Hunt – ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” Trump said on Truth Social.
I thought gag orders usually included all parties to an action…
The judge knows this entire case is a total waste of time so he’s trying to find something else to throw Trump in jail for since he knows this bogus “Case” is going no where. the Biden white house told him to throw Trump in jail by any means necessary
Merch certainly loves the limelight, doesn’t he?
i am betting house arrest
Trump is still having too much success campaigning
and in NY!
cant have that
These people have no self awareness, their lefty friends pat them on the back and they go on being imbeciles.
The judge...
“During the 2020 United States presidential election, Merchan donated $15 to Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden’s campaign, $10 to the Progressive Turnout Project, and $10 to Stop Republicans, a subsidiary of the previous.[6]”
“Merchan officiated at the wedding of his daughter, Loren, in 2022.[23] She heads a digital marketing agency which works with Democratic Party candidates and non-profits.[23][24][25]”
On this basis alone he should be removed from this travesty of a trial.
Which opens up an emergency appeal.
“their lefty friends pat them on the back and they go on being imbeciles.”
That’s a good thing. We like that.
Trump should have them find that NYC construction worker and ask if he has any messages for Judge Merchan.
Lol
No doubt!
Merchan would probably jail him though.
Jack Smith’s odds of putting Trump on trial this year are sinking
The USSC foreshadowed a long slog for Trump’s D.C. case,
while his Florida charges have similarly stalled.
April 25, 2024. | Francis Chung/POLITICO / By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN, poitico
The already-slim likelihood that Donald Trump will face a criminal trial brought by special counsel Jack Smith before the 2024 election appeared to dwindle further Thursday in the face of withering scrutiny from the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
One by one, the court’s six Republican-appointed justices — including three nominated by Trump himself — took whacks at Smith’s effort to quickly and cleanly reject Trump’s claim of immunity from criminal prosecution over his attempt to subvert the 2020 election.
Instead, during more than 2 1/2 hours of oral argument, the justices forecast a result that could require lower courts to spend months analyzing various aspects of Trump’s election plot, from organizing fraudulent slates of electors to leaning on his Justice Department to sow false doubts about the results. The purpose of those additional lower-court proceedings, several conservative justices suggested, would be to determine if some of the acts alleged in the special counsel’s indictment count as sufficiently “official” presidential duties that they ought to be shielded from criminal charges.
Even if Smith were to win those battles, it would virtually ensure that a trial could not happen until after the election.
The trial in the case was initially scheduled to begin in March of this year. But the proceedings in the trial court have been frozen for months while Trump has pursued his claim that he enjoys absolute immunity from any charges touching on his official acts.
While Smith looked on from a counsel table, the justices repeatedly emphasized the repercussions of their decision for the future of the republic, counseling a slower approach that is almost certain to push a potential trial into 2025 — and potentially foreclose it altogether if Trump wins the election and unravels the case. In fact, the conservatives on the court repeatedly insisted they were not opining on the specific charges against Trump or even particularly concerned about it.
“I’m not focused on the here and now of this case,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee. “I’m very concerned about the future.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump appointee, agreed. “I’m not as concerned about this case so much as a future one,” he said. “We’re writing a rule for the ages.”
Their protestations contrasted with those of the court’s outnumbered liberals, who repeatedly challenged Trump’s attorney, D. John Sauer, on his claim that Trump’s efforts to assemble false slates of electors or pressure state officials to help his reelection could be construed as “official acts” of a president rather than the “private” conduct of a political candidate.
The three liberal justices warned that giving Trump broad protection from prosecution would serve as a green light to future presidents to break the law with abandon.
“The most powerful person in the world could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked. “What disincentive is there for turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminality in this country?”
But most of the court’s six conservatives seemed more troubled by the possibility of runaway, retributive prosecutions against former presidents than with the idea that presidents would act lawlessly.
“Reliance on the good faith of the prosecutor may not be enough,” Chief Justice John Roberts said as he scoffed at the unanimous D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that found former presidents enjoy no immunity in criminal cases.
Roberts appeared open to the prospect of ordering the D.C. Circuit to conduct a more nuanced analysis.
“Why shouldn’t we send it back to the court of appeals?” Roberts asked Michael Dreeben, who argued on behalf of the special counsel.
“What concerns me is, as you know, the Court of Appeals did not get into a focused consideration of what acts we’re talking about or what documents we’re talking about,” Roberts said.
Three other justices — Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — also suggested that further proceedings in the lower courts may be necessary.
The conservative justices’ signaling was a significant blow to Smith, whose other criminal case against Trump — charging the former president with hoarding classified secrets in his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office — is teetering amid a pileup of pretrial disputes and unusual decisions from the presiding judge, Aileen Cannon, also a Trump appointee. It has no clear trial schedule.
From early in the arguments Thursday, it was clear that even the more moderate members of the high court’s conservative bloc were taking seriously a central tenet of Trump’s argument: Allowing his prosecution over events related to the 2020 election would open the door to a string of criminal cases against future presidents that could undermine their ability to do their jobs.
No justice seemed to treat that possibility as fanciful or entirely theoretical — even though it had never arisen over more than two centuries until Trump was hit with four separate criminal cases last year, a fact that Dreeben repeatedly noted to the court.
Trump’s good day in the Supreme Court came even as the justices appeared likely to reject his most extreme position: blanket presidential immunity from prosecution for anything potentially falling inside the “outer perimeter” of his duties.
Instead, several conservative justices appeared to favor broad protection for a former president against charges that fall within the core powers accorded solely to presidents by the Constitution and more limited protections for charges related to other acts that relate to a president’s official responsibilities.
It appeared that some justices were more inclined to call this special solicitude a form of “protection” for former presidents and to not to use the term “immunity” that Trump’s attorneys have embraced. The distinction could be important to whether Trump’s lawyers can tie up any rulings by the trial judge with further appeals.
At the conclusion of the tense and historic argument session, there was one final sign that Trump’s team had a good day. Roberts called on Sauer to offer a customary rebuttal — a chance to get the last word that Supreme Court advocates seldom pass up. “I have nothing further,” Sauer said.
So how do you keep judges who receive a lifetime appointment from becoming political prosecutors? According to John Roberts, Supreme Court Judges are apolitical. I suppose by extension that also applies to Federal Appointed Judges ... Bwhahahahahahaha
If they jail Trump we should storm the Bastille and bust him out. It has to start somewhere.
In a normal-profile case, I don't think these would be a problem but this is hardly a normal-profile case. If I were in charge of assigning judges to this case, I would have found someone who was absolutely spotless with regard to the perception of bias. Of course, the lawfare people who believe that the legal system should be weaponized against their political enemies wouldn't see it that way.
These people have nothing better to do?
Why isn’t his cracker-jack legal team appealling the gag order, and the order that Trump must attend the trial?
And they are very, very good at being imbeciles.
The judge who weaponizes the law ahs forfeited his right to life, liberty and happiness.
The Appeals Court needs to gag Merchan.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.