Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/30/trump-fined-faces-jail-and-perhaps-violated-his-terms-of-release.html
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The money means nothing to him, since his MAGAt suckers will cover the bill. Next time Merchan needs to give him a weekend in the courthouse pokey room where he can eat baloney in addition to spewing it.
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Yeah, I don’t really get the point of imposing such a small fine. It doesn’t serve as a deterrent and barely even qualifies as “symbolic” when it’s that low. Certainly doesn’t cover even the cost to the government for the time it takes for the prosecutors to make the arguments asking for the fine in the first place. The billable hours for Trump’s legal team to fight the fines is also certainly more than the cost of the fines themselves.
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Court fines are life altering obstacles for the poors and are just nuisance fees for the rich.
But a weekend or more in jail away from a golf course, now that might be a life altering obstacle for trump.
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Fines that aren’t scaled proportionately to an offender’s wealth are a joke. I’m sure he (or rather, his supporters) paid his lawyers many times that amount just for the time they spent arguing that he shouldn’t be fined for violating the gag order.
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I’ve read elsewhere that $1000 per violation is the maximum allowed.
You can be sure that no matter the amount of the fine, it is not something that he will pay happily. Rich entitled people assume that they are above such petty details, and this explains why so many of them are poor tippers as well.
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On the plus side, it allows Merchan to show that he gradually ramped up the penalties, so if Trump does end up in jail for contempt once he inevitably violates the gag order again, no case can be made that Merchan jumped the gun.
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The judge can require that he sit there and behave himself (flatulence notwithstanding) when court is in session, can a slower lengthier (~200 days for choice) court case be assessed against him? Can he be forced to “do lines”? (“The defendant has been found in contempt of this court, as penalty he must write (PO)1135809 times ‘I’m a pathetic orange loser’”)
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I wonder if part of the problem with jail in all this (because it’s hard NOT to make an argument that Trump should have spent at least some time in a cell at this point) is because nobody’s ever had to figure out how to handle imprisoning a former President before. He has Secret Service protection. Do they have to go to jail with him? Do they become unwilling prison guards at that point?
Don’t get me wrong–as I said, this is a consequence he should absolutely face for constantly flouting all the gag orders and other conditions of these trials, but it’s becoming increasingly baffling that nobody is pursuing it, especially since, as discussed, the fines are meaningless to him.
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There is a bill in waiting:
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He has griped that Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor and veteran litigator, has not been following his instructions closely, and has been insufficiently aggressive. Mr. Trump wants him to attack witnesses, attack what the former president sees as a hostile jury pool, and attack the judge, Juan M. Merchan.
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Just FYI, it’s “flout” – to treat with willful disregard, not “flaunt” – to show off to provoke envy or admiration.
Then again, we’re talking about Trump, and until he is made to pay for his gag order violations, I guess he is sort of flaunting them.
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The Secret Service declined to comment on specific plans in the matter.
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There should be absolutely no issue with his secret service bodyguard and jail that isn’t just partisan politics. They’re not going to send him to the general population holding cells on Rikers. There’s a very good chance that a jail has already been prepared for him. It would be easy.
This is America. Every courtroom, every police station and outpost, most malls, some schools, and even a few public housing projects have a jail in them. The New York State government alone has 44 jails and prisons at its disposal, many of which have unused wings or even separate facilities already designed for high profile prisoners. Witness protection, politicians, rich-and/or-famous, they don’t go into general population. Private cells, solid security to keep unwanted and unauthorized out, even just a cell in one of the several courthouses already cleared by his Praetoriana, with the other prisoners removed to other facilities for the weekend or 30 days would do it.
In a worst case (for Trump, that is) scenario, they may have renovate and reactivate one of the (checks) 14 mothballed NYC jails currently not in operation but still owned and maintained by the state for a long term, secure (for everyone) confinement. Something tells me, though, that if that is ever determined to be necessary, they’ll find the money and make sure it happens.
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I am sure RawStory is checking comments here for spelling tips.
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It does look like they’ve corrected it.
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I said I was sure.
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Just what are they afraid would happen to the orange twatwaffle once in jail? If some harm should come to him, why is that any worse than the harms done to other prisoners? After all, his followers are big on putting criminals in prison, often for a very long time. The white supremacists would surely leap up to protect him, after all. And at this point the (almost) man is just another citizen-past job titles or not.
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Pretty sure Bobo’s followers already believe in Bigfoot so she really doesn’t have to put in the extra effort of inserting “fact.”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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