Lawrence O'Donnell Spots How Trump Tested His Gag Order In 'The Worst Way'
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell took apart Donald Trump’s “juror intimidation” through his Truth Social platform and declared that the former president appears to have violated his gag order in the hush money trial on Wednesday.
“The Last Word” host pointed to a post where Trump quotes Fox News’ Jesse Watters, who recently took to his program to go through descriptions of seven anonymous jurors who have been seated so far.
“‘They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury,’ Jesse Watters,” wrote the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
O’Donnell said Watters claimed jurors “have lied their way onto the jury,” a message which the former president has “endorsed.”
“Those words are the same as Donald Trump writing them himself. That was Donald Trump’s choice to violate his gag order tonight, possibly in the very worst way. In fact, definitely in the worst way he has violated this gag order so far,” O’Donnell said.
The MSNBC host added that Trump’s post serves as a “severe test” for Judge Juan Merchan, who expanded a limited gag order against Trump following attacks against him and his daughter.
“This is by Donald Trump, by any interpretation, juror intimidation,” he said.
“This is specifically aimed at intimidating the seven people already seated on that jury and anyone else who might be seated on the jury, that when you’re seated on Donald Trump’s jury, you will be attacked, you will be publicly attacked by Donald Trump and his allies in the news media. This is the challenge that [the judge] is going to have to deal with immediately in this case.”
Merchan warned Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday after he said he observed the former president talking under his breath during the questioning of a potential juror.
“Your client was audibly uttering something,” Merchan said.
“I won’t tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear.”
H/T: Mediaite
