CNN analyst Mark Preston warned Jim Acosta that if former President Donald Trump is jailed for violating a gag order, there will likely be “civil unrest across the country.”
Trump has been accused of repeatedly violating Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order in the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
On Friday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Acosta asked his panel if it’s time to put Trump in jail. Legal analyst Elliot Williams said “Absolutely” — but it’s not that simple. Preston warned Trump puts us “between a rock and a hard place”:
JIM ACOSTA: Donald Trump could be facing contempt charges. Prosecutors claiming he violated a gag order multiple times, one that bans him from talking about witnesses and jurors in the hush money trial. The former president using every chance he gets to air his familiar, nonstop grievances.
DONALD TRUMP: I think the whole world is watching this house. You got a DA that’s out of control. You have a judge who is highly conflicted. The whole thing is a mess.
JIM ACOSTA: Panel’s back. You know, I was talking to Joey Jackson yesterday and he said, you know, after that Truth Social post where he was quoting Jesse Watters and he’s sort of insinuating that people are lying their way into the jury, which prosecutors say that that violates a gag order.
Joey Jackson was saying, maybe it’s time for the judge to send a message. Trump put him in the holding cell for a couple of hours, see if that changes his mood. What do you think?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Absolutely! The problem is that it’s not clear how much authority that the judge has to just do that.
The judge, at a minimum, has to have a hearing under New York state law. It’s not the judge being weak or feckless or afraid of Donald Trump. The law says that there’s a process that he has to follow.
And now the question is, is it civil contempt where you’re trying to compel him to behave better in the future, is a criminal contempt where you’re locking him up for things he’s done in the past, which is much harder and almost, in effect, requires a separate trial.
My big question is, why is the judge waiting until the 23rd? I guess four days from now? To even have that hearing in the first place. He could he could have done so yesterday or today to really send that message that this is important to the court and this conduct needs to stop.
JIM ACOSTA: Yeah. Mark, I’m wondering how does it change the race? We saw what happened when he had the mug shot. That fired up his base. Obviously, it wasn’t really necessary at that point, it kind of wrapped up the nomination.
But if he actually has to go into a holding jail cell, what does that do? Do we even know? I guess we don’t know.
MARK PRESTON: You know, I don’t think we know, but it really does put us between this rock and a hard place. Right.
And and the rock is like, listen, he has done something that’s wrong. And if it was any of us sitting at this table, would we be, you know, held to a higher or was held to a higher standard? Would we have to go, you know, into that holding cell?
