Bragg aims to punish Trump with contempt charge and $3,000 fine for violating gag order

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg asked a judge to hold Donald Trump in criminal contempt and fine the former president $3,000 for allegedly violating a gag order, according to a court filing made public Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Trump “willfully” violated the order, issued on April 1, by posting three separate times on social media about known witnesses and a prosecutor in Trump’s hush money case in New York.

They argued Trump should be held in criminal contempt, and that contempt sanctions should include a fine of $1,000 per post and a warning that any future gag order violation would result in a penalty of up to one month in prison.

“Defendant is not above the law, and he cannot simply disregard judicial orders that upset him,” prosecutors wrote.

Judge Juan Merchan had restricted Trump from speaking about witnesses in the case, prosecutors and their family, and court staff and their family. While Trump is still permitted to speak about Merchan, the judge also built into the order the stipulation that Trump could not speak about Merchan’s family after Trump raged in a series of social media posts about the judge’s daughter. Loren Merchan is an executive at a top Democratic marketing firm, and Trump claimed her lucrative work with Trump’s top political rivals presented a conflict of interest for the judge.

Prosecutors cited in their contempt motion two remarks Trump made on Truth Social about Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, both of whom Bragg, an elected Democrat, has indicated he plans to use as witnesses during Trump’s trial.

In the first post, the former president praised a comment by Daniels’s former attorney Michael Avenatti.

“It is outrageous that Cohen and Daniels can do countless TV interviews, post on social, & make $$ on bogus documentaries — all by talking shit about Trump — but he’s gagged and threatened with jail if he responds,” Avenatti wrote.

Trump shared the remark and thanked Avenatti for “revealing the truth about two sleaze bags.”

In the second post, Trump shared a statement Daniels made in 2018 in which she denied having an affair with Trump. Prosecutors said the statement was “directly at issue in this criminal trial.”

In the third post, made again on Truth Social, Trump referenced Bragg’s former special prosecutor Mark Pomerantz and sharply criticized Cohen.

“Has Mark POMERANTZ been prosecuted for his terrible acts in and out of the D.A.’s Office. Has disgraced attorney and felon Michael Cohen been prosecuted for LYING?” Trump wrote. “Only TRUMP people get prosecuted by this Judge and these thugs!”

Pomerantz resigned from the Manhattan district attorney’s office in 2022 in protest of Bragg’s decision at the time not to indict Trump; Bragg’s predecessor had begun investigating the hush money case years earlier. Pomerantz went on to write a book, People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account, that laid out details about the investigation.

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Merchan has scheduled a hearing on Bragg’s gag order requests for the morning of April 23.

The judge ordered Trump’s attorneys to provide an argument ahead of the hearing, by April 19, on why the judge should not hold Trump in contempt.