Former president Donald Trump rips ‘hush money’ jury on eve of contempt hearing that could put him in jail for violating gag order

Donald Trump looks to have already violated his gag order on the very first day of testimony in his New York ‘hush money’ trial.

During an interview on Steve Bannon‘s network Real America’s Voice, Trump attacked the jury.

Judge Juan Merchan had already implemented a gag order barring Trump from attacking witnesses, jurors, trial prosecutors and some others.   

‘That jury was picked so fast. Ninety-five percent are Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a purely Democrat area. It’s a very unfair situation that I can tell you,’ Trump said during the interview.

Judge Merchan has now scheduled hearing for Tuesday morning to consider prosecutors’ arguments that Trump has violated his gag order in several previous comments – and that he should be held in contempt. 

Earlier this month, Judge Merchan had specifically ordered Trump not to make any public statements about jurors sitting on his trial.

The order stipulates how Trump would be in violation for: ‘making or directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.’

Tuesday’s contempt hearing will be held outside the presence of the jury.

Trump could face fines or jail time if he violates Merchan’s gag order, which does not bar him from criticizing the judge or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges last year. 

New York prosecutors had argued at the start of April how Trump was trying to scare potential witnesses and urged Merchan to make clear that his existing gag order, which bars Trump from publicly commenting about witnesses and court staff, also applies to family members.

A March 28 social media post by Trump saw him called Merchan’s daughter a ‘Rabid Trump Hater’ and demanded the judge to be removed from the case.

‘This issue is not complicated. Family members of trial participants must be strictly off-limits,’ prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote.

Merchan’s daughter, Loren, runs a digital marketing agency called Authentic Campaigns, which works with Democratic candidates and non-profits.

Trump’s lawyers have argued her work poses a conflict of interest and have unsuccessfully sought to oust Merchan from the case.

The judge had also made several small donations totaling $35 to Democratic causes during the 2020 campaign, including $15 to Biden.  

A state court ethics panel found that Loren Merchan’s work had no bearing on his impartiality. 

The judge said in a ruling last September that he was certain of his ‘ability to be fair and impartial’ and that Trump’s lawyers had ‘failed to demonstrate that there exists concrete, or even realistic reasons for recusal to be appropriate, much less required on these grounds.’ 

In a recent interview, Merchan said: ‘There’s no agenda here. We want to follow the law. We want justice to be done.’ 

The expanding of the gag order came after Bragg asked a New York judge to consider his request.

Trump has previously blasted the gag order and says it violates his First Amendment rights.

The prosecution and defense delivered their opening statements in Donald Trump’s hush money trial on Monday morning.

The trial could last for six weeks or more, as the jury hears evidence alleging that the former president falsified business records to hide how he had bought the silence of a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.

But Monday brought the first real insight into the strategies deployed by both sides.

On its face, the case is about hush money payments to a porn star and fiddled business documents.

But the Manhattan district attorney’s office immediately said it was all about keeping voters in the dark just before they went to the polls in November 2016.

“This case is about a criminal conspiracy and fraud,’ said Matthew Colangelo.

‘The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that conspiracy by lying in his New York business records, over and over and over again.’

The defense pursued several lines on Monday. It tried to discredit key witnesses and laid the groundwork for the idea that any hush money payments had nothing to do with the election.

But lead attorney Todd Blanche introduced a ‘so what’ defense too.

‘I have a spoiler alert,’ he told the court.

‘There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.’

And the court heard from its first witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer. 

Pecker took the stand for barely 20 minutes before the court was adjourned Monday.

As the then owner of the National Enquirer, the defense puts him at the center of efforts to buy up damaging stories about Trump which were never published in a so-called ‘catch and kill’ scheme.

On Monday, he answered a bevvy of questions that identified his four phone lines and two work email addresses (one for general messages, operated by his assistants, and one for more sensitive information.)