We could be “just days away” from Donald Trump being behind bars
The thing about Donald Trump’s gag order violations and gag order hearings is that they keep overlapping each other. For instance, Judge Merchan held a hearing last week on Trump’s first batch of gag order violations, and issued a ruling today, fining Trump and threatening him with jail time.
But Merchan also has another gag order hearing scheduled for this Thursday, to address a second batch of gag order violations that Trump committed between the first hearing and today’s ruling. Because these violations were committed before the judge formally warned Trump about jail time, it’s unlikely that the judge will give Trump jail time on Thursday.
That said, the stage is now firmly set such that if Trump continues to violate his gag order after today, a third hearing will be held sometime after this Thursday, and Trump will likely be sent to jail. If that all sounds laborious, it’s just how the court system works. The judge has to do things in a specific and incremental way so as not to be overturned by the appeals court. And yes, Trump is being treated like any other defendant in this regard.
But Trump is indeed unraveling. Even as his handlers quickly deleted the social media posts that the judge ruled against, Trump left the courtroom and put on this display:
Trump: You have a judge who is totally conflicted and he's rushing this case through. Some people somebody just told me they never sat for such a long period of time in a court house before. It’s ridiculous. pic.twitter.com/qCWyjEXtjn
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 30, 2024
Keep in mind that under gag order rules, Trump is allowed to rant and rave about the judge as much as he likes. But he’s clearly too unhinged to limit what he’s ranting about. Political strategist Adam Parkhomenko says that feels like we’re “just days away from Trump taking an action that puts him in jail.” And he’s right. The Secret Service has even put together a plan for how to deal with that scenario, and used the media to inform the public about that plan.
So now we wait for Donald Trump to essentially throw himself in jail. As I said, I doubt that this Thursday’s gag order violation hearing will result in Trump being tossed in jail, because it’s set to cover additional violations that took place prior to the judge warning Trump about jail time. But the next gag order violation hearing after that – which could come early next week if Trump starts violating his gag order again by then – is the one that very well could land him in jail.
