Dear listeners,
Judge Juan Merchan has found Trump in contempt of court, finding that nine out of 10 social media posts prosecutors objected to were in violation of his gag order. Merchan fined Trump $9,000 — $1,000 per violation, the maximum authorized by New York law. He also noted those fines might not be large enough to influence Trump's behavior, and he threatened to jail him if he violates the order again.
Is that threat credible? Ken says so — Merchan seems intent on demonstrating his authority — though the Secret Service logistics of jailing a former president are daunting. And he also notes that while Merchan can impose penalties of up to 30 days in jail, he's likely to start low if it gets to that. Ken has seen other attorneys thrown in jail for just a few hours on contempt orders, just to get their attention.
Besides the contempt order, there have been several days of witness testimony in Merchan's courtroom. We talk about what we've heard from former National Enquirer boss David Pecker and from Michael Cohen's old banker — in both cases, testimony prosecutors are using to show the payments at issue were part of a political strategy, and that Trump directed the creation of false business records to hide what that strategy was.
Also in New York, Judge Lewis Kaplan has declined to reduce the $83.3 million award to E. Jean Carroll from her second civil suit against Trump. Kaplan emphasized that Trump's huge platform makes plausible that Carroll suffered huge damages from his false statements about her, and as Ken and I discussed a few months back, the fact that over $18 million of the damages were compensatory augurs well for the $65 million of punitive damages holding up on appeal.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments over presidential immunity and the conservative justices' skeptical questioning of the government raised a lot of hackles. Ken doesn't think the justices were buying Trump's very broad arguments (well, except maybe Justice Alito) but there are signs the court may go in a direction that lets the government's case go forward largely unscathed, but only after lower courts consider questions about immunity that the Supreme Court remands to them — a prospect that would mean delaying the case so it could not possibly finish before the election. Jack Goldsmith says we all should have expected this, but Ken sees some ways the Supreme Court could pass on remand, so long as it doesn't feel compelled to address certain issues that aren't forced by this specific case.
A major new indictment in Arizona over the fake elector scheme in that state has major similarities to the prosecution in Georgia, and also differences that make it more manageable and practical, including the fact that Trump himself wasn't indicted. And in New York, Harvey Weinstein's convictions have been overturned in an outcome that prosecutors should have foreseen and could have avoided if they weren't so creative in the way they prosecuted the case.
Paying subscribers get that whole conversation. Free subscribers get the Merchan and Carroll discussions, so if you want to hear about the Supreme Court and everything else, hit the button below and we'll get you all set up.
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
