NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s next big legal test is whether the famously loud-mouthed former president can keep quiet.
In recent days, he has subjected himself to new legal troubles by repeatedly vilifying the writer E. Jean Carroll even after a jury found that he defamed her. And in his criminal case involving hush money payments to a porn star, Trump is under a judge’s strict order to avoid talking publicly about certain evidence.
If he violates that order, he could be held in contempt.
“He was put on notice that if he engages in his usual behavior, that could result in a violation,” Catherine A. Christian, a former Manhattan prosecutor, said of a Tuesday court appearance in which the judge spoke to Trump by videoconference and admonished him not to breach the disclosure restrictions the judge has imposed in the case.
Trump has long let loose about judges, plaintiffs, prosecutors and other courtroom adversaries, real or perceived. In 2016, Trump said a judge overseeing a fraud case against the now-defunct Trump University was a “hater” and accused him of being unfair to Trump because the judge was “Mexican.” (The judge, Gonzalo Curiel, is an American citizen who was born in Indiana and has Mexican ancestry.)
Trump repeatedly bashed Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated his dealings with Russia, calling him a “never Trumper” who was “conflicted.”
And Trump recently has described three Black prosecutors — New York Attorney General Tish James, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — as “racist.” James has a pending civil lawsuit against Trump and his company. Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia. Bragg brought criminal charges against Trump in the hush money case.
Now, Trump’s outbursts may be catching up with him, bringing financial penalties and the potential for other punishments.
Earlier this month, a federal jury found that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll, ordering him to pay her $5 million in damages after he called her claim that he had attacked her in a luxury department store in the mid-1990s a “hoax.”
The day after the jury returned its verdict, Trump repeated statements similar to those at the heart of the lawsuit he had just lost, saying during a CNN appearance that Carroll’s story was a “fake,” “made up story” perpetuated by a “whack job.” This week, Carroll amended a separate defamation lawsuit against Trump. That lawsuit originally centered on 2019 remarks, but it will now include his CNN comments, too.
“Trump used a national platform to demean and mock Carroll. He egged on a laughing audience as he made light of his violent sexual assault, called Carroll names, implied that Carroll was asking to be assaulted, and dismissed the jury’s verdict vindicating Carroll,” her amended lawsuit says.
Trump’s CNN comments warrant “a very substantial punitive damages award” to “deter him from engaging in further defamation,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote on Monday.
But Trump was again undeterred. On Tuesday morning, he went after Carroll yet again, using nearly identical language on social media to claim that he doesn’t know her, that he “wouldn’t want to know or touch her” and that she fabricated her story. He also added that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan didn’t give him a fair trial. “Time will prove him to be highly partisan & very unfair,” Trump wrote.
Trump’s lawyers have struggled to control their client’s commentary. During the Carroll trial that ended earlier this month, Kaplan admonished the former president for a social media post in which he called the lawsuit “a made up SCAM,” with the judge telling Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, that his client was “tampering with a new source of potential liability.”
Tacopina appeared to acknowledge the difficulty of restraining the former president. “I will do the best I can do, your honor,” Tacopina told Kaplan. “That’s all I can say.”
On Tuesday, Trump appeared by video in Manhattan criminal court to hear directly from another judge: Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the hush money case. Merchan — who reportedly received threats last month after Trump publicly called him a “highly partisan judge” — issued a protective order on May 8 limiting how Trump can use and review evidence in the case, which stems from his alleged role in a scheme to falsify records of payments that covered up a potential sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign.
On four video screens placed around the courtroom, Trump appeared seated in front of two American flags and beside his attorney Todd Blanche. Merchan asked Blanche if his client understood the requirements of the order and the possible penalties of his failure to comply, specifying that they include being held in contempt of court.
“Because President Trump is running for president of the United States … he very much is concerned that his First Amendment rights are being violated by this protective order,” Blanche told the judge. “I have explained to him that that is not your honor’s intention … and that this is not a gag order.”
Merchan agreed that he wasn’t seeking to impose a gag order, a measure that would require Trump to refrain from making any public comments about the case. “It’s not my intention in any way to impede his ability to campaign for president of the United States,” the judge said.
“He’s free to do anything that does not violate the specific terms of the protective order,” Merchan added. That order prevents Trump or anyone else who reviews evidence provided by prosecutors from sharing it, including on social media. It also restricts Trump to reviewing certain evidence in the presence of his lawyers and bars him from photographing it or copying it. And it prevents the disclosure of the names of certain district attorney’s office staffers to the defense until jury selection.
Christian, the former Manhattan prosecutor, said the purpose of the court appearance was “to hit the nail with a hammer — to make sure there’s no doubt, so Mr. Trump can’t say, ‘Well my attorneys never told me about this.’”
The protective order specifically prohibits sharing any evidence and would prevent Trump from, say, “reading from Michael Cohen’s grand jury testimony” at one of his rallies, Christian added, referring to Trump’s former personal attorney who likely will be a key witness against him. (Christian is not involved in the hush money case.)
Trump’s expression was fixed in a scowl as he listened to Merchan. When the judge set a trial date of March 25, 2024, and asked Trump and the lawyers not to make commitments that could conflict with the date, Trump lowered his head and shook it. And he spoke just three words publicly during the hearing: When Merchan asked him if he had a copy of the protective order, he answered, “Yes, I do.”
But he wasn’t taciturn for long. About an hour after the hearing, he took to his social media site, expressing his displeasure that the judge set the trial for “right in the middle of Primary season.”
“It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE, and nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before!!!”