Former President Donald Trump removed multiple social media and website posts on Tuesday to comply with a judge’s order.
Earlier Tuesday, Judge Juan Merchan ordered the former president to remove seven posts on Truth Social and two on his campaign website, alleging they violated a gag order. He also held President Trump in contempt of the court and fined him $9,000 for the posts.
He told the former president that the offending posts must be removed by 2:15 p.m. ET. The posts were removed by that time.
“Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” Judge Merchan wrote in the order.
Several of the items that were deleted included multiple re-posts of an article written by Jonathan Turley, a law professor, who alleged Mr. Cohen is a “serial perjurer.
“A serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system,” President Trump quoted in a post dated April 15.
“Making this assorted business even more repellant will be the appearance of Cohen himself on the stand,” Mr. Turley also wrote, adding: “Cohen was recently denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer who is continuing to game the system.”
Mr. Cohen is expected to be a witness in the case. Prosecutors allege that President Trump’s campaign reimbursed Mr. Cohen to pay Ms. Daniels to prevent her from going public with allegations that she had an affair with the former president a decade earlier, which he has denied.
The judge, however, allowed a post that prosecutors flagged to remain online and did not penalize the former president for it. That post accused Ms. Daniels and Mr. Cohen of being “sleaze bags,” while the judge said that President Trump was responding to previous posts by Mr. Cohen.
Another post that was deleted included a mid-April video of Fox News host Jesse Watters criticizing prospective jurors in the case and claiming that left-wing activists are trying to infiltrate the jury pool.
“They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury,” President Trump said on Truth Social on April 17, quoting Mr. Watters.
The former president’s attorneys had argued that the gag order should be rescinded because it deprives President Trump of his free speech, namely during a presidential election. Later, Judge Merchan expanded the gag order to include members of his family after the former president noted multiple times that the judge’s daughter is a Democratic Party staffer.
Earlier, the judge wrote that he is “keenly aware of, and protective of,” President Trump’s First Amendment rights, “particularly given his candidacy for the office of President of the United States.”
“It is critically important that defendant’s legitimate free speech rights not be curtailed, that he be able to fully campaign for the office which he seeks and that he be able to respond and defend himself against political attacks,” Judge Merchan added.
The ex-president was ordered to pay the gag order fine by the close of business Friday. The judge was also weighing other alleged gag order violations by President Trump and will hear arguments Thursday. He also announced that he will halt the trial on May 17 to allow President Trump to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.
The gag order, the judge added, will “not be used as a sword instead of a shield by potential witnesses” and that if people who are protected by the order, like Mr. Cohen, continue to attack President Trump “it becomes apparent” they don’t need the gag order’s protection.
President Trump did not respond to reporters’ shouted inquiries about the fine in the courthouse hallway as court resumed for the afternoon.
He is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the Daniels payments. The detailed evidence on business transactions and bank accounts is setting the stage for testimony from Mr. Cohen, who went to federal prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and other crimes.
President Trump’s attorneys have said that he was engaged in an effort to protect his name and his family and was not trying to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
“This is a case that should have never been brought,” the former president recently told reporters at the Manhattan courthouse.
