Former President Trump on Monday suggested he would be willing to go to jail over repeated violations of his gag order imposed by a New York judge.
“This judge has given me a gag order and said you’ll go to jail if you violate it,” Trump told reporters after court adjourned for the day in his hush money trial. “And frankly, you know what, our Constitution is much more important than jail. It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day.”
“But what’s happening here is a disgrace, and the appellate courts ought to get involved,” Trump added.
Judge Juan Merchan on Monday found Trump violated a gag order for a 10th time and ordered him to pay $1,000 for attacking jurors in his hush money criminal trial, just days after the judge ruled on an earlier set of gag order violations.
Merchan warned Trump that future violations could be punishable by incarceration.
Merchan told Trump the “last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” but “at the end of the day, I have a job to do.”
“Your continued violations constitute a direct attack on the rule of law,” Merchan said.
The gag order bars Trump from hurling insults at witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court staff and the judge’s family. It doesn’t bar him from attacking the judge or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D).
Trump has lambasted the restrictions, asserting they violate his First Amendment rights to respond to political attacks, something he should be entitled to do as the presumptive Republican nominee for president in November’s election.