Former President Donald Trump complied with a court order to delete posts from his Truth Social account on Tuesday, following Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling that he violated a gag order in his ongoing trial. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to alleged hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Judge Merchan imposed a deadline for Trump to remove the offending posts by 2:15 p.m. ET on Tuesday and fined him $9,000 for nine violations of the gag order.
At a hearing regarding the gag order, Judge Merchan expressed frustration with Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche, warning him that further violations could lead to serious consequences, including potential jail time. Prosecutors highlighted several additional posts and comments by Trump that allegedly violated the gag order. A hearing is scheduled to address these alleged violations on May 2.
Legal experts doubted that Judge Merchan would incarcerate the former president for the first set of violations, given the fines were relatively minor compared to Trump’s wealth. However, the judge indicated that future violations could lead to jail time, emphasizing that New York law does not grant the court the flexibility to increase fines to levels that would have a meaningful impact on someone as wealthy as Trump.
Following the court’s ruling, Trump’s offending posts remained online for a few hours. However, shortly before the deadline, Trump deleted the posts to comply with the court’s order.
Addressing first what has been referred to as “reposts,” Exhibits 1, 4, 5,6,7,8 and 9, this Court finds that a repost, whether with or without commentary by the Defendant, is in fact a statement of the Defendant. The issue of “reposting” appears to be a question of first impression. Lacking legal authority to guide its decision, this Coutt must, as defense counsel stated at the hearing, rely on common sense.
Both the Truth Social account and the official campaign website, exclusively represent the opinions and views of the Defendant, and neither is an open forum for others to post their own content. Defendant curated the posts at issue and then took the necessary steps to publish the posts on his Truth Social account and on his campaign website. In doing so, he endorsed the posts with one purpose in mind – to maximize viewership and to communicate his stamp of approval. Indeed, Defendant has boasted about the reach of his Truth Social platform when describing its value…
Thus, there can be no doubt whatsoever, that Defendant’s intent and purpose when reposting, is to communicate to his audience that he endorses and adopts the posted statement as his own.
It is counterintuitive and indeed absurd, to read the Expanded Order to not proscribe statements that Defendant intentionally selected and published to maximize exposure. This is not to say that a repost will always be deemed a statement of the reposter, as context is directly relevant. However, here, under the unique facts and circumstances of this case, the only credible finding is that the reposts constitute statements of the Defendant.
