Judge to Donald Trump: STFU or Go to Jail

Donald Trump learned a fundamental legal lesson Friday morning: Actions do have consequences. The former president is currently staring down the very real prospect of jail time after he “blatantly” violated a gag order imposed in his New York bank fraud trial, reported The Daily Beast.

“In the current overheated climate, incendiary comments can and in some cases already [have], led to serious physical harm and worse,” said Justice Arthur F. Engoron as the trial began on Friday, demanding that Trump’s legal team explain the former president’s recent actions. Engoron would go on to levy a $5,000 fine on Trump, “payable to the New York Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection,” according to the order.

At issue was a post made by Trump on Truth Social earlier this month, in which he claimed that Engoron’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, was dating Senator Chuck Schumer. Trump also shared Greenfield’s Instagram details, effectively ushering a scourge of far-right sympathizers onto her social media accounts. Then, hours after Engoron issued his gag order, Trump launched more vitriol at the judge.

Trump attorney Chris Kise claimed the gag order was violated in error, blaming Trump’s “campaign machinery” for forgetting to remove a web page that mirrored the Truth Social post, which Trump had deleted. That answer wasn’t enough for the “typically easygoing” judge, who noted that the 2024 Republican presidential candidate is “still responsible for the large machine.”

“Despite this clear order, last night I learned that the subject of the offending post was never removed from the website DonaldJTrump.com, and in fact had been on that website for the past 17 days. I understand that it was removed late last night, but only in response to email from this court,” Engoron noted.

To say that this all could have been avoided is an understatement. The threat of jail time is an interesting turn in a civil case that was never actually going to lead to Trump facing the prospect of jail time. Rather, the case challenges the validity of his real estate business, the Trump Organization, and some of its dealings.

Engoron hasn’t been the only judge to slap Trump with a court order. On Tuesday, Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed another gag order on the former president in his D.C. trial, which focuses on his effort to subvert the 2020 election. In a statement, Chutkan said that Trump’s First Amendment protections “yield to the administration of justice” and that his presidential candidacy does not give him “carte blanche” to vilify public servants “who are simply doing their job.”

Engoron went to some lengths to impress upon Trump that there would be further consequences for further violations: “Donald Trump has received ample warning from this Court as to the possible repercussions of violating the gag order,” the judge wrote. “He specifically acknowledged that he understood and would abide by it.” “This Court is way beyond the ‘warning’ stage,” he added.

* This post has been updated.

ANSWER: Nope!

Hours ahead of a third vote for speaker of the House, Representative Jim Jordan insisted that he’s not backing down.

For about 10 minutes, the continuously imperiled House speaker nominee offered his thoughts to reporters in a bizarre speech that name-checked the Wright brothers, ironically emphasized the need for unity, and even managed to sprinkle in some conspiracy-mongering about the validity of the 2020 presidential election.

But if there was any purpose to the ultraconservative’s brief message, it was that he plans to plough ahead with yet another floor vote, despite intraparty insistence that he should back down after two rounds of voting in which he’s lost ground.

This did not seem to trouble Jordan at all. “There’s been multiple rounds of votes for speaker before,” Jordan quipped, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s 15-ballot bid to land the House’s highest position, while the prospect of a series of weekend votes for the position looms over the legislature.

But momentum is not on Jordan’s side, as meetings between the Trump ally and his holdouts have gone south. Several of Jordan’s detractors have hardened in their opposition, in reaction to the nominee’s strong-arming campaign, in which Jordan allies sent anonymous threats to congressmen and their spouses. Now Jordan’s antagonists are unwilling to negotiate further, reported Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman. Instead, they want Jordan to know that he will not be speaker.

Even among his allies, Jordan’s shtick is beginning to “wear a little thin,” and he has possibly “worn out his welcome,” one senior House GOP member told Fox News’s Chad Pergram.

Jordan’s long-shot bid to become speaker has only grown more fraught as the days have dragged on. In his first floor vote, 20 Republicans voted against him. In the second, another two joined their camp. And dozens more may be waiting in the wings to hop into this chorus of refusal: On Wednesday and Thursday, some party members warned that the tribe against Jordan is much larger than the “no” votes that have been tallied, with some alleging that more than half of the Republican members in the House are prepared to vote “no.”

Meanwhile, the House is unable to act on any policy without someone behind the gavel. On Friday, the White House asked Congress for $100 billion in an emergency national security funding package that would provide $61.4 billion to Ukraine, $14.3 billion to Israel, and another $10 billion in humanitarian aid. But if Jordan spends the next few days still fruitlessly chasing a vote he seems destined to lose, there’s no telling when, or if, these measures will get approved.

It’s Day 16 without a House speaker, and congressional Republicans are no closer to electing someone to replace Kevin McCarthy than they were two weeks ago. Meanwhile, tensions appear to have reached a breaking point.

The GOP’s four-hour, closed-door meeting on Thursday began with a debate over extending Representative Patrick McHenry’s temporary speakership, but instead devolved into a full-blown meltdown, with party members pointing fingers at one another and somehow leaving the caucus even less unified than before.

McCarthy and Representative Matt Gaetz, one of the former speaker’s ousters, got especially heated. When Gaetz went to speak at the mic, McCarthy reportedly “screamed” at him to sit down. Representative Michael Bost then got “all emotional” and began cursing at Gaetz, huffing that the current predicament was “all his fault,” reported CNN’s Melanie Zanona.

“I think the whole country is screaming at Matt Gaetz,” McCarthy told Axios’s Juliegrace Brufke, denying allegations that he raised his voice.

One member of the House GOP turned to prayer. Another left for lunch. Still others took to a joint study session, scouring copies of the U.S. Constitution amid an unprecedented bid to expand McHenry’s power as speaker pro tempore so that he could run the House for weeks (or longer) while the party worked on electing a speaker.

But that plan—just like Representative Jim Jordan’s nomination for speaker, and Steve Scalise’s before him—lacks the necessary Republican votes to pass, which means only Democratic support could salvage it.

Jordan emerged from the GOP’s epic meeting to declare, “I’m still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes.” But it’s not clear how he’ll get there.

The number of House Republicans on record opposing Jordan has grown from 20 to 22, and some of his detractors warn that the real number could be as high as 40. Which means there’s no end in sight to the GOP’s impasse.

GOP Representative Jim Banks said it best: “We don’t deserve the majority if we go along with a plan to give the Democrats control over the House of Representatives.”*

* This piece has been updated with the full quote from Banks.

After two failed floor votes, and his number of Republican supporters in decline, Representative Jim Jordan is backing down from his bid for House speaker.

The Ohio Republican announced Thursday morning that he would not be pursuing an additional floor vote, reported The Washington Post. Instead, Jordan is reversing course and backing a plan to expand the powers of Representative Patrick McHenry’s temporary speakership until January.

It’s currently unclear how many Republicans will get behind McHenry, though predictions haven’t been rosy. Ahead of a short recess, Texas Representative Pat Fallon estimated that two-thirds of the caucus will oppose the resolution, reported Punchbowl News’s John Bresnahan.

Other Republicans appeared frustrated and even betrayed by the turn of events, openly fuming to press about the McHenry plan.

“It’s absurd,” Indiana Representative Jim Banks told Fox News, noting that at least half of the Republican members in the House plan to vote against it. “It was the biggest ‘F.U.’ to Republican voters I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s going to take Democrats to make it happen. And that’s a historic betrayal to our Republican voters if we go along with it. It’s a big mistake,” Banks added.

Arizona Representative Debbie Lesko allegedly told Jordan that he should step down if he supports the McHenry resolution, snubbing Jordan’s behavior as “self-serving,” according to Politico’s Olivia Beavers.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have their own set of requirements for the fill-in.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats want assurances that the temporary speaker will support the previously negotiated debt limit deal and consider supplemental aid to Ukraine and Israel. They also are demanding that whoever fills the seat be someone who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election results, reported Punchbowl News’s Heather Caygle.

McHenry refused to respond to any questions regarding the impending decision, reported Fox News’s Chad Pergram.