Judge Merchan's 'inexplicable lapse' lets Trump 'run rampant': CNN analyst
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig on Monday expressed dismay that Judge Juan Merchan has not yet ruled on whether former President Donald Trump had violated a gag order he set that barred him from publicly attacking witnesses and jurors.
Although Honig gave Merchan strong marks overall for his handling of the trial, he was perplexed as to why the judge has delayed issuing a ruling on the gag order that the former federal prosecutor contends Trump has broken several times.
"I have given up figuring out when and why this judge is going to rule," said Honig. "I thought he was going to rule right away, I thought he should rule right away! Look, Judge Merchan has done a very good job of keeping control of his courtroom and keeping things moving efficiently. And this is sort of an inexplicable lapse by him. To me, there's no reason to hold off."
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He then broke down the costs of delaying his ruling on the alleged gag order violations.
"Here's the status quo: We had an initial batch of 11 alleged violations, the judge held a hearing on that early last week, and now we've got a second batch of four more in a resulting hearing next week, and he hasn't ruled on any of them, and Trump continues to violate the gag order!"
Honig acknowledged that Merchan's options were limited as he's "not going to lock up Donald Trump," and can only fine him $1,000 per violation.
Nonetheless, he said Trump could use some real discipline.
"We both have kids," he said. "If you wait to enforce discipline, they're not going to get the point at all, they're going to run rampant."
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