Trump on going to jail over gag order: 'I'll do that sacrifice'

Donald Trump said he would rather risk imprisonment than comply with a gag order in his on-going criminal trial, just hours after the judge overseeing his criminal hush-money trial threatened to put the former president in jail.

“Frankly our Constitution is much more important than jail,” Trump said to press in the hallway of the Manhattan courthouse. “It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day.”

Justice Juan Merchan on Monday held the former president in contempt for a second time and warned that he faced imprisonment if he broke the gag order that bars him from publicly commenting on jurors, witnesses and others involved in the case.

But the former president has already violated this order and received $10,000 worth of fines since the trial began, $1,000 for each violation.

“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Merchan said Monday.

But the presumptive GOP nominee quickly used the contempt ruling to build support on the campaign trail and with his donors, as he had done last week after Merchan ruled that the former president violated the gag order.

A fundraising email sent Monday before court was out said: “The liberal judge in New York just threatened to THROW ME IN JAIL” with emphasized red lettering and the subject line, “They want me in HANDCUFFS.”

The email encouraged supporters to “Stand with Trump” and directed donations to a joint-fundraising committee launched this spring, Trump National Committee JFC, which sends money both to Trump’s campaign account and the Republican National Committee. Both entities are being out-raised by their Democratic counterparts.

The contempt rulings provide Trump with a new way to criticize the trial and criminal justice system, which he has asserted is unfair and biased against him. Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump has railed against the four separate criminal cases against him, claiming that he’s being unfairly targeted while at the same time sending out fundraising solicitations.

Republicans strenuously defended the former president after each indictment and rallied to his support. The day he took a mugshot in Fulton County, Georgia, he raised more than $7 million dollars, making it his campaign's single biggest fundraising day of the cycle. Such events have led his supporters to welcome a possible escalation in consequences from Merchan.

“Do it b*tch and watch those poll numbers go through the roof,” Students for Trump Chair Ryan Fournier said on X, formerly Twitter.

Ben Feuerherd contributed reporting.