Former Trump employees detail hush money payments at heart of his trial

Ximena Bustillo:

So, last week, the prosecution took issue with four statements that Trump had made earlier, a few weeks ago, and, ultimately, Judge Juan Merchan issued a violation of one of the statements. And that was a statement that Trump had made in an interview where he accused the jury of being — quote — “95 percent Democrat.”

This statement, the judge himself said last week was concerning him any, kind of inference or a character judgment on the jury. Judge Merchan is very protective of this jury. It’s supposed to be an anonymous jury, and he’s taken a lot of steps to make sure that they are safe and protected from any sort of intimidation or threats.

Now, Judge Merchan has also previously said that $1,000 is the maximum penalty that can be issued per violation. So, last week, we also saw a different set of gag order violations totaling $9,000. This time, it was only $1,000.

Now, Judge Merchan has said that he’s aware that, for someone like Donald Trump, who is wealthy and of a higher stature, that fine might not be enough to deter future violations or future breaking of the gag order. And so that’s where the punishment and threat of jail time comes into play.

And that’s something that the judge has threatened before. But, this morning, he was particularly very pointed. In fact he didn’t even really talk about the order on the stand and instead took his time to tell — to tell former President Donald Trump that, if he were to violate this order again or continue to do so, he will take the necessary steps and maybe even resources to jail.