Donald Trump returned to the New York court on Tuesday where he faces the threat of being convicted of contempt for his attacks on witnesses and jurors on the sidelines of his criminal trial for hidden payments to a former porn star in 2016.
Speaking to the press just before entering the hearing room, the former President of the United States focused his attacks on his rival in the race for the White House, Joe Biden. He held him responsible for tensions on college campuses because of the war between Israel and Hamas and attacked him for his positions on the conflict.
“He’s not a friend of Israel, that’s for sure. And he is not a friend of the Arab world either,” he said.
The first former president of the United States to appear in criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is exposed to the risk of a legal conviction in the middle of the electoral campaign.
In this historic trial, he is on trial for 34 falsifications of accounting documents from his group of companies, the Trump Organization, to conceal the payment of $130,000 to former porn star Stormy Daniels in the home stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign.
The money was used to buy the silence of the actress who claims to have had a sexual relationship in 2006 with the Republican billionaire – which he denies -, when he was already married to Melania Trump.
In presenting the charges to the jury, Manhattan prosecutors accused Donald Trump of having “orchestrated a criminal conspiracy” to distort the judgment of voters before the 2016 election and his narrow victory against Hillary Clinton, then of having “lied in accounting documents” to “conceal” this stratagem.
False, retorted the defense, who assured that Donald Trump was “totally innocent” and that the payments were not illegal.
” Liar “
But the debates on the merits had barely begun on Monday when the court examined, on Tuesday, the unbridled speech of Donald Trump on his Truth Social network and possible violations of the ban imposed by judge Juan Merchan on attack witnesses or jurors.
From the first day of the trial, April 15, the prosecution had asked the judge to sanction Donald Trump with a fine of 3,000 dollars, in particular for virulent invectives against Stormy Daniels and his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who became his sworn enemy and a key witness for the prosecution.
The prosecution returned to the charge three days later, with seven new publications on Truth Social or its campaign site.
The Republican candidate once again attacked Michael Cohen, described as a “serial liar”. But he also echoed the comments of Jesse Watters, a prominent host on the conservatives’ favorite channel Fox News, assuring without proof that “they are choosing undercover progressive activists who lie to the judge to be part of of the jury”.
The day after this publication, a juror threw in the towel, saying she feared being recognized. To avoid intimidation and pressure, the judge imposed anonymity on the jurors. It is also for this reason, and in the face of Donald Trump’s sometimes violent rhetoric, that he forbade him from attacking jurors, witnesses, court staff and representatives of the public prosecutor’s office, exception of the magistrate himself and Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
Donald Trump contests these bans, which he considers to be attacks on his freedom to campaign and describes them as unfair because Michael Cohen does not hesitate to criticize him.
To punish possible contempt of court, the judge can order fines but also imprisonment not exceeding 30 days.
“If this charlatan, completely partisan, wants to put me in jail for telling the most obvious truth […] it would be a great honor,” challenged Donald Trump during a meeting.
After hearing the arguments of the parties, the judge will make his decision or put it under advisement.
Proceedings in the trial itself are scheduled to resume at 11:00 a.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT).