Being found in contempt of court in his ongoing hush money trial is just the latest example: The former president has no respect for the country or citizens he’s running to lead.
the judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial held the former president in criminal contempt for violating his gag order. Nine times. With a fine of $1,000 a pop.
Though it’s shocking that a former president doesn’t appear to understand courtroom rules that anyone who has ever seen “Law & Order” could explain, there is a certain poetic justice.
After all, no one loves contempt more than Donald Trump.
It is his metier, his medium, his world view. Contempt for those who disagree with him, oppose him or attempt to hold him accountable, contempt for the rule of law and norms of governance.
Judge Juan Merchan had previously issued the order to prevent the defendant from threatening or insulting witnesses in the trial, which of course Trump proceeded to do.
Nine grand is a mere bagatelle compared to the $175-million bond he had to pay in his New York fraud case, or the $88.3 million in all that he has been ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll in two separate cases related to Carroll’s claim that Trump sexually assaulted her at a New York department store in 1996, then defamed her by saying she lied about it.
No doubt he will simply roll out another set of campaign solicitations, passing the bill down to his supporters.
There may be clearer ways to declare one’s contempt for hard-working Americans than to continually expect them to foot the bill for a rich man’s court bills, but I can’t think of one at the moment.
Then again, Trump does not like most Americans, or the country in which they live, very much.
As the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol proved, he has nothing but contempt for our electoral process, on which so many democracies have been modeled — a system that gave him the presidency in 2016 despite his losing the popular vote.
As he has said repeatedly, he will, if reelected, pardon those jailed for illegally breaking into and vandalizing one of this country’s most important buildings to threaten members of Congress, and Trump’s own vice president, for doing their sworn Constitutional duty to uphold a free and fair election.
