'He's just a guy': Expert says jury sees Trump as an 'old dude' looking 'orange and tired'
Former President Donald Trump has always commanded a larger-than-life presence — but the Manhattan criminal hush money trial could bring that all crashing down, MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang suggested on Thursday.
"I want to know how far this goes," said anchor Jason Johnson. "What is the scale of consequences for Donald Trump continuing to violate the gag order? Because it doesn't seem like anybody has — he's been violating gag orders like crazy. He's a dog chasing cars. He doesn't know what he's going to do but he's going to keep chasing the cars. No one is throwing him in jail. People have penalized him, they said it was bad, they gave him a smack on the wrist and he keeps going. What could actually happen here? What's the worst that could happen if he continues to violate the gag order and heaven forbid, something dangerous happens?"
"The short answer and immediate answer is he could go to jail," said Phang. "He could be incarcerated. That is allowed for under the New York laws and applicable procedures. It's a fine up to $1,000 each time, but it also can be a fine and jail or a fine or jail." This stands in contrast to the penalties Trump got in his civil cases for violating gag orders, where he was fined $15,000.
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"I know a lot of people who are tuning in watching are very impatient and they don't understand why the judge hasn't done anything yet, but I want to reassure people, on Tuesday there's a process and procedure by which this contempt hearing has to take place. Under the rules and the law, you have to have an evidentiary hearing. It can't just be the judge saying, I'm holding you in contempt of court ... you have to afford Donald Trump the opportunity to be able to show cause, meaning prove or show why he should not be held in contempt of court because that's what the prosecution is seeking in this instance. That's what's going to happen on Tuesday."
Furthermore, she continued, "another kind of component happening here is when our colleague Yasmin Vossoughian interviewed one of those excused jurors, she said he looked less orange in person. Now, I beg to differ. I don't know if he looks less orange, but the reality is she's seeing a man that is forced to have to sit in court, and you take away all of the bluster, you take away all of this idea in the public and the media about what a big guy this guy is, and he's just this old dude sitting there looking orange and tired. What it does, though, is I think it recalibrates everybody from the judge to the lawyers to the jurors to understand, he's just a guy. He's not a deity. He's not a cult leader. He's just a man who has violated the laws and just like all of us who violate a law, there's going to be consequences."
"When he violates a gag order, the judge is going to say you're not learning your lesson and I can put you in jail, or I can take you out of court, I can make you sit privately somewhere else. I won't let you have access to a phone," she added. "There's remedies, and we'll see what happens on Tuesday."
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Katie Phang says Trump has been reduced to "an old dude ... looking orange and tired" www.youtube.com