Former President Donald Trump was fined $5,000 by a New York judge on Friday for violating a gag order not to speak about any members of the court staff – and was warned twice about possible imprisonment.

“Donald Trump has received ample warning from this Court as to the possible repercussions of violating the gag order. He specifically acknowledged that he understood and would abide by it,” Judge Arthur Engoron said in his order Friday.

“Accordingly, issuing yet another warning is not longer appropriate; this Court is way behind the ‘warning’ stage.”

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    See that, they fined a billionaire/millionaire $5k, he’s finally facing consequences for his actions. We got ‘em!

    • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 year ago

      I think that’s the standard fine for the first offense. Plus, the violation was not removing something from his website that existed before the gag order, not something he did after.

      The judges are following standard procedure so he can’t appeal things when he is sent to jail.

    • hansl@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      How to solve world’s hunger in two easy steps; make the rich pay every time they say something stupid. The second step is the hardest; actually collect the money.

    • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t mind for all the fuck twits I have to listen to repeat his stupidity for the last decade

  • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    At least it wasn’t just a warning, there was a fine attached, but that’s like fining your average middle class person like 25 cents.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Apparently it has to ratchet up, from “inconsequential” to imprisonment, specifically to show the courts increasing frustration.

      Otherwise the defendant can claim bias

    • Tefinite Dev@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Only if I could go out and ask my friends and family for the money so I didn’t actually have to pay the $0.25.

  • protist@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    A lot of complaining on here about the size of the fine or the fact that Trump isn’t in jail yet, or disparate legal treatment for rich people. Let’s think through the implications of putting Donald Trump in jail for this, of all things. If he gets put in jail prior to his trial, I think it’d be better for all of us, and for keeping him in jail, if it happens due to him willfully or maliciously violating a gag order rather than due to an oversight or incompetence among his staff. It’s coming y’all, be patient.

    • Treczoks@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I see the fine as both a warning and a lure for Trump. The court will step up the punishments, of that I am sure. And they started with a, for him, neglectable fine. He and his fanboys might laugh about this, but it could easily lead to prison for the next time he’s fined - he now had ample warning from the court that he will be punished, and the next time it will be a repeat offence.

    • nocturne213@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      If his staff is incompetent he should hire the best and the brightest, or do the work himself.

      • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        He can no longer afford the best and brightest, and they’re too smart to accept “trust me, bro” as a guarantee of payment. Additionally, he’s not used to doing things himself; he’s used to having underlings do things for him.

        The only people who will work for him now are sycophants and/or people who are motivated by some sort of personal gain. In other words, he’s surrounded by incompetent, greedy losers. Heh heh heh.

      • protist@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        What? Donald Trump doesn’t know how to operate a website, and few competent people are willing to work for him. None of this changes my argument that if a former president is put in jail, let’s have it be because he did something willfull or malicious

        • paper_clip@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Donald Trump doesn’t know how to operate a website

          “Someone told me I need pipes for the website. We need to get the best pipes. Do they come in gold plate?”

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      If they’re avoiding this hard to put him in jail what makes you think he’ll ever get a guilty verdict. All this dancing around makes me believe he’ll never be convicted, or at most it will be a slap on the wrist.

      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        $5000 is a typical fine for first-time violation of a gag order. They are neither avoiding putting him in jail nor eager to put him in jail.

      • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        How is standard procedure “avoiding hard”?

        They have to play it perfect so trump cannot appeal based on bias or mistreatment

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    $5,000? Wow, really bringing out the big guns here aren’t we. That’ll show him, I’m sure!

    • david@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I know Trump massively overstated his wealth, but fining him $5000 is like fining me £10. He won’t even notice it’s gone at the end of the month. $5,000, 000 or prison time would be a meaningful punishment.

        • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          The Internet loves that line but it is still wrong

          If I suddenly lost 5-10% of my money? Well, I would probably have to sell my house and car and also figure out how to get money out of my 401k and IRA. So let’s focus on the actual money I have in the bank. I would basically need to cancel an upcoming trip and postpone some renovations I am planning to have done next year. Which would be annoying, but whatever.

          If someone working two jobs just to make ends meet lost 5-10%? They would not be able to eat or make rent and would likely be homeless and unemployed.

          And if a millionaire lost 5-10% of their money? Well, they would be pissed, but it would not impact their quality of life at all.

          Monetary fines will always favor the rich.


          And if we do consider a world where your fine includes stuff like equity in a house? You would see an actually successful insurrection almost overnight because that is the kind of stuff the world associates with the less fun kings of england… and almost all colonizers.

          • Hawke@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It doesn’t have to be 5-10%, it could be 0.5-1% or 0.05%-0.1%. The point is to scale with wealth.

            • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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              1 year ago

              That is even more meaningless for the rich but still can ruin the life of the poor.

              As a bit of an exercise to understand why this is so meaningless to the people it is meant to actually punish:

              There are 24*365.25 hours in a year. 1M USD / 8766 hours ~= 114 USD/hour

              To burn through one million dollars, you would need to spend 114 dollars per hour for an entire year.

              Even at 1%, 10k is almost nothing. It sounds good on the news and keeps people from realizing just how massively fucked the world is, but it still isn’t even the inconvenience of a medieval weregild.

  • Proteus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m pessimistic enough to think this is an example of what his punishment will be for just about all his crimes.