Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a marketing campaign occasion on April 02, 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Spencer Platt | Getty Pictures
Donald Trump on Saturday mentioned he welcomed the prospect of going to jail for violating a gag order in his upcoming New York hush cash trial.
“I’ll gladly grow to be a Fashionable Day Nelson Mandela — It is going to be my GREAT HONOR,” the previous president wrote in a prolonged Reality Social put up attacking New York State Supreme Courtroom Decide Juan Merchan, who’s presiding over Trump’s case.
It was not the primary time Trump has likened himself to a martyr as he faces a flurry of legal costs.
In an October rant in opposition to his numerous lawsuits, the presumptive Republican nominee additionally in contrast himself to Mandela, the previous president of South Africa who spent 27 years in jail for his anti-apartheid activism.
And final week, Trump took to Reality Social to share a message that likened his authorized troubles to the persecution of Jesus Christ.
Saturday’s tirade occurred simply over per week earlier than the trial is scheduled to start on April 15.
That day, jury choice will get underway within the state’s legal prosecution of the previous president on 34 counts of falsifying enterprise paperwork, allegedly in an effort to conceal a hush cash fee made to porn star Stormy Daniels weeks earlier than the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has accused Merchan of being compromised due to his daughter’s position at a progressive consulting agency that has labored for Democrats.
Trump’s social media rant on Saturday was the most recent of a number of that he has posted in regards to the decide’s daughter since Merchan first imposed an preliminary gag order on the finish of March.
That order prohibited Trump from making public statements in regards to the case’s witnesses, jurors and legal professionals. He was additionally banned from publicly talking about courtroom workers, staff within the Manhattan District Legal professional’s workplace and their members of the family. That first gag order got here in response to Trump’s repeated requires the decide to recuse himself.
Someday after the primary gag order was imposed on March 26, Trump went after Merchan’s daughter on social media.
Quickly after that, Merchan granted prosecutors a request to develop the scope of the order to ban direct assaults on Merchan’s members of the family and the household of Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg.
Beneath the expanded order, Trump can nonetheless criticize Merchan and Bragg individually. However he’s not allowed to focus on their households publicly.
Enjoying with the hearth of his gag orders is changing into routine for Trump.
In October, Decide Arthur Engoron threatened Trump with jail time for violating an analogous order in a civil case and finally issued him $10,000 in fines.
President Joe Biden’s reelection marketing campaign seized on Saturday’s Mandela feedback.
“Think about being so self-centered that you simply evaluate your self to Jesus Christ and Nelson Mandela all throughout the span of little greater than per week: that is Donald Trump for you,” Biden marketing campaign spokesperson Jasmine Harris mentioned on Saturday.
