The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal trial said he would hold the former president in contempt of court for a tenth time for violating a gag order and said he would consider jailing him for further violations.

Justice Juan Merchan said the nine $US1,000 fines ($1,507) he had imposed so far did not seem to be deterring Mr Trump from violating the gag order.

The order prohibits Mr Trump from making public comments about jurors, witnesses and families of the judge and prosecutors if the statements mean to interfere with the case.

Justice Merchan said he considered jail time “truly the last resort” for many reasons, including the disruption to the trial, political implications of jailing a leading presidential candidate ahead of an election, and the extraordinary security challenges of incarcerating an ex-president with a lifetime Secret Service detail.

But he said Mr Trump’s “continued, wilful” violations of the gag order amounted to a “direct attack on the rule of law”.

“I do not want to impose a jail sanction and have done everything I can to avoid doing so. But I will if necessary,” he said from the bench in the absence of the jury.

New York law allows fines of up to US$1,000 or jail time of up to 30 days for violating a court-imposed gag order.

Justice Merchan imposed a US$1,000 fine on Monday for an April 22 broadcast interview in which the Republican former president said: “That jury was picked so fast — 95% Democrats. The area’s mostly all Democrat.”

He found that other statements flagged by prosecutors that mentioned witnesses Michael Cohen and David Pecker did not violate the order.

Last week he fined Mr Trump US$9,000 for nine social media posts that he ruled had violated the gag order.

Justice Merchan spoke while Mr Trump sat at the defendant’s table in the New York courtroom in the first criminal trial of a former US president.

Mr Trump’s criminal hush money trial, now in its 12th day, has featured testimony from a top aide and a former tabloid publisher about efforts during his first presidential bid to tamp down stories of unflattering sexual behaviour.

New York prosecutors have charged Mr Trump with falsifying business records to cover up a US$130,000 ($196,000) payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with him in 2006.

Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies ever having sex with Ms Daniels.

Mr Trump complains frequently that the gag order limits his ability to make his case to voters for a comeback White House bid.

Before Monday’s session, Mr Trump declined to comment about Mr Cohen, his former lawyer who is expected to be a prominent witness in the trial.

However, he repeated unsupported claims that New York prosecutors are working with President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to hobble his political prospects and said Justice Merchan faces a conflict of interest because his daughter has done work for Democratic politicians.

Mr Trump’s lawyers have unsuccessfully tried to remove Justice Merchan from the case.

“The judge has gagged me and I’m not allowed to talk about, I guess, his total conflict,” Mr Trump told reporters outside the courtroom. “He’s taken away my constitutional right to speak.”

Business official testifies

The trial then resumed with testimony from Jeffrey McConney, a former Trump Organization finance official who testified that Mr Trump was a frugal businessman who negotiated nearly every transaction to the penny.

Mr McConney’s testimony could bolster aspects of the prosecutors’ case that focus on the business records they say were illegally falsified to cover up the payment to Ms Daniels.

Prosecutors say the payment to Stormy Daniels corrupted the 2016 election by keeping the news from voters, at a time when his treatment of women was a central issue in his campaign against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

They say the altered business records covered up election-law and tax-law violations that elevate the 34 counts Mr Trump faces from misdemeanours to felonies punishable by up to four years in prison.

The main players in the case have yet to testify, including Ms Daniels and Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who handled the payment to Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

Last week the 12 jurors and six alternates who will decide Donald Trump’s guilt or innocence heard testimony from Hope Hicks, his former longtime aide who described frantic efforts to respond to stories of alleged affairs and sexual harassment that cropped up in the waning weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Ms Hicks grew emotional as she testified that Donald Trump told her to deny that he had sex with Stormy Daniels and wanted to keep his wife Melania from hearing about the allegation.

That could help Donald Trump’s defence, which maintains he made the payment to shield his family rather than deceive voters.

The case features sordid allegations of adultery and secret pay-offs, but it is widely seen as less consequential than three other criminal prosecutions Mr Trump faces.

It is the only one certain to go to trial before the November 5 presidential election.

The other cases charge him with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to all three.

Reuters