The judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan rebuked the former president on Monday for mounting “a direct attack on the rule of law,” holding him in contempt of court for a second time and threatening to jail him if he continued to break a gag order that bars him from attacking jurors.
In a moment of remarkable courtroom drama, the judge, Justice Juan M. Merchan, addressed Mr. Trump personally from the bench, saying that if there were further violations, he might bypass financial penalties and place the former president behind bars.
Justice Merchan acknowledged that jailing Mr. Trump was “the last thing” he wanted to do, but explained that it was his responsibility to “protect the dignity of the justice system.”
The judge said that he understood “the magnitude of such a decision” and that jailing Mr. Trump would only be taken be as a last resort. He noted: “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well.”
As the judge delivered his admonition and imposed a $1,000 fine, Mr. Trump stared straight at him, blinking but not reacting, and when the remarks were over, the former president shook his head.
It was the second time in two weeks that Mr. Trump had been punished for breaking the gag order, which also prevents attacks on prosecutors, witnesses and others. Of all the violations Mr. Trump has been accused of, Justice Merchan has taken those involving the jury most seriously.
The violation for which the former president was punished on Monday stemmed from an incident on April 22, when Mr. Trump made disparaging remarks about the jurors during a telephone interview with a far-right media outlet, Real America’s Voice. The jury, he said, had been picked “so fast” and was “mostly all Democrat,” adding, “It’s a very unfair situation.”
Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the case accusing Mr. Trump of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal, argued that Mr. Trump had committed a total of four new violations of the order. But Justice Merchan concluded that only the incident in which Mr. Trump attacked the jury amounted to a violation.
“Defendant not only called into question the integrity, and therefore the legitimacy of these proceedings, but again raised the specter of fear for the safety of the jurors and of their loved ones,” Justice Merchan wrote in his order holding Mr. Trump in contempt.
The order came less than a week after Justice Merchan issued a separate decision fining Mr. Trump $9,000 for nine earlier violations. In that ruling, the judge said that he lacked the authority to issue larger fines against the billionaire former president and warned him that continued disobedience could land him in jail.
The two contempt findings were the latest reminder of the great lengths to which judges have gone to keep Mr. Trump from lashing out at participants in the wide array of legal matters in which he is embroiled.
Last year, another judge in Manhattan twice found Mr. Trump in contempt during a civil fraud trial and imposed tens of thousands of dollars in fines. The former president is also under a gag order in a federal case in Washington in which he has been charged with plotting to overturn the 2020 election, but he has not yet been accused of violating that one.
Mr. Trump has bridled in various ways at the constraints of Justice Merchan’s order, which was first put in place in March and then expanded several days later.
On Thursday, for instance, one of his lawyers, Susan Necheles, asked Justice Merchan to evaluate a stack of articles that Mr. Trump had wanted to post online about the case.
Ms. Necheles expressed concern that the articles might violate the gag order because they mention the names of witnesses, but Justice Merchan refused to rule in advance about whether Mr. Trump could post them, cautioning Ms. Necheles, “When in doubt, steer clear.”
That same afternoon, when court let out for the day, Mr. Trump falsely told reporters that the gag order would prevent him from testifying in his own defense at the trial. On Friday morning, Justice Merchan took a moment to publicly correct the former president, instructing him that order “does not prevent you from testifying in any way.”
