WARPATH: Trump PUMMELS Judge Merchan in social media rampage
What Donald Trump can’t win in the courtroom, he aims to win instead in the court of public opinion. He’s using his social media to challenge Judge Juan Merchan’s rulings, and, in essence, is daring the judge to act.
Merchan has already set a hearing to consider whether Trump is violating the terms of his gag order and to determine what enforcement mechanisms are appropriate if so. Additional alleged violations have been added to the list for Trump’s sharing information about the jurors, but his team says they plan to argue that reposting what others (like Fox News personality Jesse Watters) have said to attack the jurors doesn’t constitute a violation, according to Inner City Press.
Though Judge Merchan didn’t seem convinced, Trump has continued to post similar material. On TruthSocial, he uploaded a short video montage, titled “The Biden Trials,” which includes clips of the aforementioned Watters claiming that the jury is biased, a clip of reports that a juror said, after being sworn in, that she couldn’t be “fair and unbiased,” and a lineup of cards with juror information.
The video did not mention, incidentally, that this is the juror who asked to be excused, because after her information was released, including Watters talking about her on a previous segment that Trump reposted, she was contacted by people asking if she was a juror. She said that with the outside pressure, she wasn’t confident in her ability to handle the case without bias (possibly meaning that she no longer felt safe serving), and she was released.
Trump had plenty more to say about the case, too. He has posted demands that Judge Merchan be removed — a request that he’s filed in court so many times that Merchan finally told him it would no longer be entertained.
He’s also posted claiming that Merchan is “railroading” him “at breakneck speed,” four minutes after another post alleging that the trial is a “long, rigged, endurance contest,” and the day before posting that it is a “rushed trial” — and one that should have been brought 8 years earlier. He demanded:
“IT IS BEING PRESIDED OVER BY POSSIBLY THE MOST CONFLICTED JUDGE IN JUDICIAL HISTORY, WHO MUST BE REMOVED FROM THIS HOAX IMMEDIATELY.”
Trump didn’t quite say by what means he expects Merchan to be removed, but he’s already attempted and exhausted all of the legal methods. Legal analysts have been debating whether Trump could finally face serious consequences for his utter contempt for the court and the judicial system. Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel, thinks it’s possible. According to Newsweek:
“He’s already had not only one, but two bites of the apple,” Weissmann said. “He’s been given these warnings. “So I do think that when you get to particularly jurors and pernicious effectiveness, that the prospect of some form of jail time, even if it’s a timeout in a holding cell, is something that is going to need to happen.”
The hearing to address gag order violations is on Tuesday.
Below, see Trump’s post sharing juror information.
