Former President Donald Trump was fined $5,000 by a New York judge on Friday for violating a gag order not to speak about any members of the court staff – and was warned twice about possible imprisonment.
“Donald Trump has received ample warning from this Court as to the possible repercussions of violating the gag order. He specifically acknowledged that he understood and would abide by it,” Judge Arthur Engoron said in his order Friday.
“Accordingly, issuing yet another warning is not longer appropriate; this Court is way behind the ‘warning’ stage.”
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Jailed on #1 if the judge felt you were trying to threaten them,
Or if you’re too poor or the wrong colour.
Naw, that’s when the judge issued the no-knock warrant;
Land of the free (if you can afford it), home of the slaves (if you can’t).
Land of the FEE
You need a mob of willing idiots to threaten people to get your way, I keep saying this.
See that, they fined a billionaire/millionaire $5k, he’s finally facing consequences for his actions. We got ‘em!
I think that’s the standard fine for the first offense. Plus, the violation was not removing something from his website that existed before the gag order, not something he did after.
The judges are following standard procedure so he can’t appeal things when he is sent to jail.
Thanks for the sane response. It’s frustrating watching the wheels slowly grinding
I could pay that.
What the fuck.
Ain’t oligarchies fun?
Legal for a price!
Then you can violate a gag order, once.
“Ok, don’t do it again. We really, really mean it this time.”
In a sternly written letter
That’s it !?!
At least it wasn’t just a warning, there was a fine attached, but that’s like fining your average middle class person like 25 cents.
Apparently it has to ratchet up, from “inconsequential” to imprisonment, specifically to show the courts increasing frustration.
Otherwise the defendant can claim bias
That’s Trump’s secret, though; he always claim bias.
“would the defendant please put a quarter in the contempt jar”
Only if I could go out and ask my friends and family for the money so I didn’t actually have to pay the $0.25.
Imagine if you got $5,000 every time Trump said something stupid.
How to solve world’s hunger in two easy steps; make the rich pay every time they say something stupid. The second step is the hardest; actually collect the money.
I wouldn’t mind for all the fuck twits I have to listen to repeat his stupidity for the last decade
Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!
A lot of complaining on here about the size of the fine or the fact that Trump isn’t in jail yet, or disparate legal treatment for rich people. Let’s think through the implications of putting Donald Trump in jail for this, of all things. If he gets put in jail prior to his trial, I think it’d be better for all of us, and for keeping him in jail, if it happens due to him willfully or maliciously violating a gag order rather than due to an oversight or incompetence among his staff. It’s coming y’all, be patient.
I see the fine as both a warning and a lure for Trump. The court will step up the punishments, of that I am sure. And they started with a, for him, neglectable fine. He and his fanboys might laugh about this, but it could easily lead to prison for the next time he’s fined - he now had ample warning from the court that he will be punished, and the next time it will be a repeat offence.
If his staff is incompetent he should hire the best and the brightest, or do the work himself.
He can no longer afford the best and brightest, and they’re too smart to accept “trust me, bro” as a guarantee of payment. Additionally, he’s not used to doing things himself; he’s used to having underlings do things for him.
The only people who will work for him now are sycophants and/or people who are motivated by some sort of personal gain. In other words, he’s surrounded by incompetent, greedy losers. Heh heh heh.
What? Donald Trump doesn’t know how to operate a website, and few competent people are willing to work for him. None of this changes my argument that if a former president is put in jail, let’s have it be because he did something willfull or malicious
Donald Trump doesn’t know how to operate a website
“Someone told me I need pipes for the website. We need to get the best pipes. Do they come in gold plate?”
If they’re avoiding this hard to put him in jail what makes you think he’ll ever get a guilty verdict. All this dancing around makes me believe he’ll never be convicted, or at most it will be a slap on the wrist.
$5000 is a typical fine for first-time violation of a gag order. They are neither avoiding putting him in jail nor eager to put him in jail.
How are they “avoiding hard,” in this instance?
How is standard procedure “avoiding hard”?
They have to play it perfect so trump cannot appeal based on bias or mistreatment
Aaaaaaaany day now.
$5,000? Wow, really bringing out the big guns here aren’t we. That’ll show him, I’m sure!
Lock it up! Lock it up! Fucking spineless judge right there
I know Trump massively overstated his wealth, but fining him $5000 is like fining me £10. He won’t even notice it’s gone at the end of the month. $5,000, 000 or prison time would be a meaningful punishment.
If the punishment is a fine, it’s only illegal for poor people.
punitive fines should be a % of net worth or they are not punitive. zero deterrence
i guess were lucky they even mentioned jail time. lucky us.
The Internet loves that line but it is still wrong
If I suddenly lost 5-10% of my money? Well, I would probably have to sell my house and car and also figure out how to get money out of my 401k and IRA. So let’s focus on the actual money I have in the bank. I would basically need to cancel an upcoming trip and postpone some renovations I am planning to have done next year. Which would be annoying, but whatever.
If someone working two jobs just to make ends meet lost 5-10%? They would not be able to eat or make rent and would likely be homeless and unemployed.
And if a millionaire lost 5-10% of their money? Well, they would be pissed, but it would not impact their quality of life at all.
Monetary fines will always favor the rich.
And if we do consider a world where your fine includes stuff like equity in a house? You would see an actually successful insurrection almost overnight because that is the kind of stuff the world associates with the less fun kings of england… and almost all colonizers.
It doesn’t have to be 5-10%, it could be 0.5-1% or 0.05%-0.1%. The point is to scale with wealth.
That is even more meaningless for the rich but still can ruin the life of the poor.
As a bit of an exercise to understand why this is so meaningless to the people it is meant to actually punish:
There are
24*365.25hours in a year.1M USD / 8766 hours ~= 114 USD/hourTo burn through one million dollars, you would need to spend 114 dollars per hour for an entire year.
Even at 1%, 10k is almost nothing. It sounds good on the news and keeps people from realizing just how massively fucked the world is, but it still isn’t even the inconvenience of a medieval weregild.
You’re still probably off by an order of magnitude too
Another nickel, just a cost of doing business.
I’m pessimistic enough to think this is an example of what his punishment will be for just about all his crimes.
Is the judge Gary Bettman?
That fine is nothing to him.
Fines are only punishments if you are poor.
