“以眼还眼”：特朗普依靠他的旧剧本来反对他的禁言令
【中美创新时报2024 年 4 月 24 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）刑事案件中的禁言令对唐纳德·特朗普来说是一种新体验，但并不是它试图遏制的行为。多年来，欺凌和恐吓一直是他的策略的一部分。他甚至把它付印了。他在 2004 年出版的《特朗普：如何致富》一书中写道：“当有人伤害你时，就尽你所能地恶毒、暴力地追捕他们。” “就像圣经里说的，以眼还眼。”
《波士顿环球报》记者Jim Puzzanghera对此作了如下报道。
现在，作为第一位因刑事指控接受审判的前总统，这一策略给他带来了高风险，也给法官带来了复杂的挑战，因为特朗普发表的言论超出了极限，专家称这些言论将使其他被告入狱。
特朗普如此频繁地猛烈抨击参与纽约封口费案的人，以至于胡安·默查（Juan Merchan）法官发布了一项狭隘的禁言令，试图保护证人、律师、陪审员，甚至法庭工作人员和默钦自己的女儿免受恐吓。 特朗普仍然可以自由地谈论法官和整个案件。
但这仍然没有阻止特朗普将其言论针对证人和受该命令保护的其他人。他现在面临罚款，每次违规最高 1,000 美元，并可能入狱——尽管专家表示这种可能性极小——检察官表示他至少违反了 10 次命令，默查正在决定是否对他进行藐视法庭判决。
根据听证会记录，检察官克里斯托弗·康罗伊 (Christopher Conroy) 在周二有关违规行为的听证会上告诉默查：“他知道自己不可以做什么，但他还是这么做了。” 当特朗普的一位律师托德·布兰奇声称“特朗普总统非常谨慎地遵守”禁言令时，默查警告说，“你正在失去法庭的所有可信度。”
在特朗普自己的评论、竞选声明以及社交媒体上的帖子和转发中，他多次追查关键的检方证人，称其中两人为“卑鄙的人”，并暗示“卧底自由派活动人士”正试图进入陪审团。在听证会上，康罗伊告诉默查，特朗普周一在法庭外再次违反了禁言令，指的是前特朗普调解人、明星检方证人迈克尔·科恩所说的“所有谎言”。
关于禁言令的争议就像审判中的审判，随着特朗普平衡谴责起诉的政治好处和激怒法官的法律缺点，这场审判可能会继续下去。
芝加哥 Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner 律师事务所合伙人、前联邦检察官雷纳托·马里奥蒂 (Renato Mariotti) 表示：“到了一定程度，你就会因为惹怒法官而付出代价。” “最终，特朗普的律师知道，如果他们要打赢官司，他们就不会在法官对他们和他们的委托人感到愤怒的情况下这么做，而他会尽其所能激励他们说服他们的委托人相信这一点。”
乔治华盛顿大学名誉法学教授凯瑟琳·J·罗斯表示，虽然特朗普公开抱怨他因政治原因受到司法系统的虐待，但实际上他在禁言令上得到了优惠待遇。
“一个做过特朗普迄今为止所做的事情的人…… 已经在监狱里了。毫无疑问，”2021 年出版的《撒谎的权利？ 总统、其他骗子和第一修正案。”
禁言令也对默查提出了艰巨的挑战，他必须权衡总统候选人的言论自由权和对司法程序公正性的担忧。罗斯说，在这种情况下，这种动态对特朗普有利。
她说，他是一位前总统，目前的共和党推定候选人，也是一家社交媒体公司的所有者，因此特朗普的言论所造成的损害比典型的被告要大得多。与此同时，他的政治名人也让他更难被约束，因为默查不太可能把他送进监狱，作为对违反禁言令的惩罚。
罗斯说：“我们知道他的支持者有可能甚至有暴力倾向，这是针对攻击陪审员和证人的禁言令的部分原因。” “任何法官都不愿意对这个人迅速采取行动。”
美国地区法官塔尼娅·查特坎 (Tanya Chutkan) 正在主持对特朗普的联邦刑事审判，罪名是他试图颠覆 2020 年大选，他也在该案中发布了类似的狭隘禁言令。她在 10 月份发布的命令中写道：“政府引用的无可争议的证词表明，当被告公开攻击个人，包括与本案相关的事项时，这些人就会受到威胁和骚扰。”
联邦法官刘易斯·卡普兰(Lewis Kaplan)去年监督了一场民事审判，该审判发现特朗普在1996年对E·让·卡罗尔(E. Jean Carroll)进行了性虐待，并判给她500万美元的赔偿金。他在陪审员判决后向陪审员发表的评论中暗示了可能存在暴力行为。
“我给你的建议是不要透露自己的身份。据美国有线电视新闻网 (CNN) 报道，他告诉他们，现在不会，而且很长一段时间内都不会。
特朗普周二出庭，抱怨自己受到不公平的压制。他对记者说：“一位高度矛盾的法官向我发出了违宪的禁言令，他应该回避。”
共和党民意调查专家乔恩·麦克亨利表示，遵守禁言令并不是特朗普的基因。
“他永远不会承认自己错了，他觉得如果你不提出自己的理由，你就是软弱的，”麦克亨利说。 “如果他只是坐下来并遵守禁言令，就像几乎所有其他被告一样，他只是让检方对他提起诉讼，日复一日，周复一周，可能如此。”
麦克亨利说，任何罚款都可以很容易地被特朗普筹集的资金所抵消。
“当他第一次被罚款时，将会有一封筹款电子邮件发送给小额捐助者，其中写道：‘帮助我对抗这个腐败的法官，给我钱来偿还这些罚款，这样我就可以继续发言。’ ”麦克亨利说。“那封电子邮件可能已经写好了。只需要输入一个日期即可。”
特朗普已经试图通过禁言令听证会筹集资金，并在前一天晚上发送了一封电子邮件征求意见，称“如果事情不按我们的意愿发展，我可能会被投入监狱。”
在将最初的禁言令扩大到包括律师和法院工作人员的家庭成员时，默查在 4 月 1 日写道，“法院对被告的第一修正案权利感到担忧，特别是当被告是公众人物时，这是可以理解的”，但他补充道，“ 这种攻击主审法官和负责其案件的律师的家庭成员的模式没有任何合法目的。”
默查说：“这只会给那些被指派或被要求参与诉讼的人带来恐惧，因为不仅他们自己，而且他们的家人也会受到被告尖酸刻薄的‘公平对待’。”
题图：前总统唐纳德·特朗普周二在纽约市法庭外向媒体发表讲话。POOL/GETTY
附原英文报道：
‘An eye for an eye’: In pushing back against his gag order, Trump relies on his old playbook
By Jim Puzzanghera Globe Staff,Updated April 24, 2024
WASHINGTON — A gag order in a criminal case is a new experience for Donald Trump, but not the behavior it seeks to rein in. Bullying and intimidation have been part of his playbook for years. He even put it in print.
“When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can,” he wrote in his 2004 book, “Trump: How to Get Rich.” “Like it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye.”
Now, as the first former president to go on trial on criminal charges, that strategy presents high-stakes risks for him and complex challenges for the judge as Trump pushes the envelope with comments that experts say would land other defendants behind bars.
Trump has lashed out so frequently against people involved in the New York hush money case that Judge Juan Merchan issued a narrow gag order to try to protect witnesses, attorneys, jurors, even court staff and Merchan’s own daughter from intimidation. Trump remains free to talk about the judge and the case overall.
But that still hasn’t stopped Trump from aiming his comments at witnesses and others protected by the order. He now faces fines, limited to $1,000 per violation, and possible jail time — although experts say that is highly unlikely — as Merchan decides whether to hold him in contempt after prosecutors said he violated the order at least 10 times.
“He knows what he’s not allowed to do, and he does it anyway,” prosecutor Christopher Conroy told Merchan on Tuesday during a hearing on the violations, according to the hearing transcript. When one of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche, asserted that “President Trump is being very careful to comply” with the gag order, Merchan warned, “You are losing all credibility with the court.”
In Trump’s own comments, campaign statements, and posts and reposts on social media, he has repeatedly gone after key prosecution witnesses, calling two of them “sleaze bags,” and suggesting “undercover liberal activists” were trying to get on the jury. At the hearing, Conroy told Merchan that Trump violated the gag order again just outside the courtroom on Monday, referring to “all the lies” told by former Trump fixer turned star prosecution witness Michael Cohen.
The dispute over the gag order is like a trial within the trial, one that is likely to continue as Trump balances the political upside of railing against his prosecution with the legal downside of angering the judge.
“At a certain point you’re going to pay a price for pissing the judge off,” said Renato Mariotti, a partner at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in Chicago and a former federal prosecutor. “Ultimately Trump’s attorneys know that if they’re going to win the case, they’re not going to do it with a judge angry at them and their client, and he will do what he can to inspire them to convince their client of that reality.”
While Trump publicly complains he’s being mistreated by the justice system for political reasons, he’s actually been getting preferential treatment on the gag order, said Catherine J. Ross, an emeritus law professor at George Washington University.
“Somebody who had done what Trump has done to date . . . would already be in jail. There’s no question,” said Ross, author of a 2021 book, “A Right to Lie? Presidents, Other Liars, and the First Amendment.”
The gag order also poses a difficult challenge for Merchan, who must weigh the free speech rights of a presidential candidate with concerns about the integrity of the judicial process. The dynamic is warped in Trump’s favor in this case, Ross said.
He is a former president, the current presumptive Republican nominee, and owner of a social media company, so Trump can do far more damage with his comments than a typical defendant, she said. At the same time, his political celebrity makes him harder to restrain because Merchan is unlikely to send him for a short stint in jail as punishment for gag order violations.
“He has supporters who we know have the potential and even tendency to be violent, which is part of the reason for the gag order [against] attacking jurors and witnesses,” Ross said. “Any judge would be reluctant to move quickly against this person.”
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s federal criminal trial on charges he tried to subvert the 2020 election, also issued a similar narrow gag order in that case. “Undisputed testimony cited by the government demonstrates that when defendant has publicly attacked individuals, including on matters related to this case, those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed,” she wrote in issuing the order in October.
And federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw a civil trial last year that found Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and awarded her $5 million in damages, hinted at the potential for violence in his comments to the jurors after their verdict.
“My advice to you is not to identify yourselves. Not now and not for a long time,” he told them, according to CNN.
Trump emerged from court Tuesday complaining he was being unfairly muzzled. “I have an unconstitutional gag order by a highly conflicted judge that should recuse himself,” he told reporters.
Complying with the gag order is not in Trump’s DNA, said Republican pollster Jon McHenry.
“He is never going to admit that he’s wrong, and he feels like if you don’t make your case, you’re weak,” McHenry said. “If he just sits and abides by the gag order, as virtually any other defendant would, he’s just letting the prosecution make their case against him, day after day, week after week, potentially.”
Any fines would easily be offset by the fund-raising Trump could do off it, McHenry said.
“The first time he gets fined, there’s going to be a fund-raising email that goes out to small donors saying, ‘Help me fight this corrupt judge and give me the money to pay off these fines so I can continue to speak,’ ” McHenry said. “That email is probably already written. And it just needs a date put in it.”
Trump already tried to raise money off the gag order hearing, sending out an email solicitation the night before saying, “If things don’t go our way, I could be thrown in jail.”
In expanding his initial gag order to include family members of lawyers and court staff, Merchan wrote on April 1 that “courts are understandably concerned about the First Amendment rights of a defendant, especially when the accused is a public figure,” but added that “this pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose.”
“It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well are ‘fair game’ for defendant’s vitriol,” Merchan said.
