Donald Trump just made a huge mistake
Donald Trump has a long history of cowering in the face of gag orders because he doesn’t want to get locked up. Instead he generally responds to gag orders by saying something offensive about a topic that’s not gagged, thus distracting everyone from the fact that he is indeed meekly complying with the gag order. But now something has changed.
Immediately leading up to the start of his criminal trial, Trump violated his gag order. Then on the opening day of the trial, Alvin Bragg asked the judge to fine Trump for this violation and to inform Trump that he’ll be locked up if he violates it again. The judge responded by setting a hearing for next week about the gag order.
This is the part where Trump would normally back down. Instead, Trump made a point of attacking trial witness Michael Cohen tonight. This is an escalation on Trump’s part which throws off the judge’s intended timeline. So we won’t be surprised if the judge swiftly addresses the matter on Thursday morning, the next time trial is in session.
The question is how far the judge will go in response to Trump’s latest violation. Keep in mind that gag order violations tend to be incremental. So yes, Trump is facing the same punishment as anyone else by being fined first and then threatened with uglier penalties.
But now that Trump is responding to the gag order hearing announcement by violating the gag order again before the hearing, he’s truly playing with fire. The judge can lock Trump up on Thursday if he decides to.
This is all naturally being portrayed as “Trump is more dangerously powerful than ever” and “Trump is getting away with it all” by talking heads everywhere. But in reality, what we’re seeing here is Trump deviating from his usual smart pattern of (just barely) abiding by the gag order, in favor of a new and very stupid pattern in which he blatantly violates a gag order. If he keeps this up, he will absolutely get locked up before this trial is over. This judge has already shown over the past two days that he’s not messing around.
The question is why Trump is going this route. Have his idiot handlers convinced him that getting locked up for contempt will be good for fundraising? If so, that’s an extraordinarily dumb idea. Or has a frustrated Trump merely snapped now that he’s on criminal trial, and can’t help but dig himself a deeper hole? We’ll see. But there’s only one way this ends for Trump if he keeps it up.
