Donald Trump Is Pushing Judge Merchan to 'Breaking Point'—Legal Expert

Former President Donald Trump looks to be on his last chance for violating the gag order in his hush money case, a legal expert has said.

Ray Brescia, a law professor at Albany Law School in New York and author of Lawyer Nation, told Newsweek that Judge Juan Merchan will likely impose a jail sentence rather than more fines, if Trump violates his gag order again.

Merchan fined Trump $9,000 on Tuesday for nine violations of the gag order, which bans Trump from commenting about witnesses or jurors in the case.

"It is likely the last time the judge will give the former president that kind of penalty," Brescia said. "If Trump clearly violates those orders in the future, the judge has little recourse but to require the former president to serve some jail time for such infractions."

"The integrity of the judicial process is at stake at this point, and the judge has shown significant and fair restraint up to this point. But I would imagine even he will have his breaking point," he said.

Prosecutors brought another four alleged gag order violations to Merchan's attention on Thursday.

Merchan said he will decide on those four alleged violations at a later date.

Brescia said that as those four comments were made before the ones that brought the $9,000 fines, Merchan will likely not jail Trump over them.

"Since it appears that at least these four new statements were made prior to Justice Merchan's sanctions order, it would not surprise me if the judge issued only monetary sanctions again, in the event he finds any of these statements violate the prior gag orders at all," he said.

"It is likely the last time the judge will give the former president that kind of [monetary] penalty, however," he said.

On Tuesday, Judge Juan Merchan fined Trump $9,000 for nine violations of a gag order that he imposed on the former president to prevent him from talking about witnesses and jurors in the trial.

On Thursday, prosecutors cited another four alleged violations.

Merchan did not immediately rule on the prosecutors' request for more penalties but he warned Trump that he may take further action against him. He then refused to tell Trump's lawyers if he could forward other people's negative comments about the trial in his social media website, Truth Social.

Merchan told Trump's lawyers: "I'm not going to be in the position of looking at posts and determining in advance whether you should or should not post...I think if in doubt, steer clear. That's all I'm going to say."

Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney on Friday.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is the first former president in United States history to stand trial in a criminal case. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. He has continually said that this case and other criminal and civil matters involving him are politically motivated.

The prosecution seeks to prove that before the 2016 presidential election, Trump paid, or discussed paying, two women—adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal—to not disclose his alleged affairs with them. He denies affairs with either woman.