He should have said this the first time; still not gonna hold my breath, though.
Too many weasel words in his statement.
Set one of these up in front of the courthouse:
And make it clear to Lord Dampnut that passersby will have a big basket of rotten fruit at their disposal; not to mention mockery & laughter.
Jail time will merely make him a martyr to his cult; this will result in his humiliation, and being pelted with dangerous fruit is a phobia of his.
‘Worst case’?
Hell, that’s what some of us are hoping for!
That’s gonna happen regardless of the location of his demise.
I would bet that a sizeable portion of his cult will believe that he’s not really dead, & will return to Save America… especially if someone starts the rumor that his tomb was found to be empty.
Pretty sure he also has no idea what a cell is actually like. He has some TV-ized version of something in his head which has zero bearing on reality of even the nicest jail.
It might actually shake his worldview a bit. For a few moments at least, until the insanity switch turns back to on.
Honestly, who the hell cares how much Trump might like jail or not? Him not being in jail is how he raises funds, intimidates witnesses, stirs up stochastic terrorists, and rallies support for the next election. He’s dangerous and his megaphone needs to be taken away. Isn’t that why we have a legal system, to protect people from criminals?
One day Trump will die. If it happens while he is in jail for multiple contempt of court, that is the decision of God. Who are his followers to question it?
If Trump again attacks witnesses or the jury, Merchan should assign him to pick up trash in parks on two or three Wednesdays, when court is not in session. (City judges have done this before to contempt offenders.) Parks could be more easily secured by the Secret Service than roads, and that would spare the agents uncomfortable nights outside his cell.
Judge Merchan is in a no win situation here. Obviously, the fines were never going to work, and I’m sure he knew that. I believe the amount of the fines for contempt in that court are fixed, though, and the amount was not up to the discretion of the judge. If the defendant were literally anyone else, they would already be in jail. We all know that, and Judge Merchan knows that, and he knows that everyone else knows that. But putting a former President who is the presumptive nominee for President of one of the major parties in jail is going to be a circus. It will create a media circus, it will be a circus for the jail personnel to manage, and it will almost certainly earn Merchan and his family even more death threats than they are already getting. I’m not saying he shouldn’t do it. I’m just saying I appreciate the difficulty of doing it.
IIRC Merchan said something to the effect of “our legislators in Albany have seen fit to limit how much I can fine you for each offense and $1000 a pop clearly isn’t having the desired effect…” but I think he still felt compelled to go through the motions before escalating.
Now that the performative ritual of fining Trump is done, I hope Merchan is able to bring himself to do the next right thing even though he’s doubtlessly scared shitless about the potential consequences for him and his family.
May 6 (Reuters) - Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who testified at Donald Trump’s criminal trial last month, was targeted in a fake emergency the same day he took the stand in New York, according to police records seen by Reuters.
From Merchan’s order
This Court cannot find beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant’s statements referenced
in Exhibits E and G were not protected political speech made in response to political attacks by Michael Cohen. Ukewise, this Cout cannot find beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant’s statement referenced in Exhibit H constitutes a violation of the Expanded Order. To be sure, this Court understands the People’s atgument as it pertains to this Exhibit and agtees that often seemingly innocuous ot even complimentary words and phtases can in truth conceal a more nefarious purpose, such as to threaten, harass or intimidate. However, context, facial expressions, emphasis and even cadence ate cdtical in reaching such a detetmination. Under the circumstances here, this Court cannot find beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement in question constituted a veiled threat to Mr. Pecker or to other witnesses.
