Make Trump Pick Up Trash

That’s the right penalty when he violates the gag order

As regular readers know, I’ve long supported community service as the appropriate sentence for Donald Trump. The logistics of housing the Secret Service detail (to which Trump as a former president is entitled) in jail are too difficult and imprisonment runs the risk of making him a martyr, or at least distressingly popular among other white collar inmates.

With the trials delayed, I hadn’t thought much lately about sentencing but now the question of punishment for contempt of court is front-and-center. On Monday night, Judge Juan Merchan issued a stunning five-page ruling that extended the gag order to his own family because the physical safety of his daughter — wrongly accused by the Trump team of bias against the defendant — is imperiled by the former president of the United States. This is the horrifying reality of life in the United States now, and of course it will get much worse if Trump returns to the Oval Office.

Judge Merchan wrote:

“It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings. The threat is very real. Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint.”

The judge told Trump that if he keeps it up, he will prevent him from learning the names (and thus the backgrounds) of potential jurors, which would seriously impair the defense during jury selection. But of course the likelihood is that Trump will re-offend. He can’t help himself, as we saw when he continued to slander E. Jean Carroll even after she won her case against him the first time.

So what are Merchan’s options if — no, when — Trump violates the gag order? He could fine him, as Judge Arthur Engoron did in a recent civil case where he stopped short of holding Trump in contempt and slapped him on the wrist with a $5,000 fine.

Trump wouldn’t likely have any trouble paying a seven-figure fine and he might actually welcome being jailed for a night or two, which would help him play the victim card and boost his campaign. For that reason, Merchan should avoid these options.

President Donald Trump hands out supplies at an aid station in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, October 2017

But how about community service? I had originally suggested a soup kitchen but that runs the risk of Trump throwing paper towels at poor people, as he did while president when he visited Puerto Rico after a hurricane. Ladling soup in the Bronx might make him look beneficent on Fox. An Old Goats reader suggested he be assigned instead to pick up trash by the side of the road, a punishment sometimes used by judges in New York City cases. Perfect! This would punish him, humiliate him and — because it’s hard to imagine anything he would less like to do — deter him.

Of course he’d need a long trash stick because even after Ozempic — I have no inside knowledge but he looked thinner to me in person in court last week — he’s still too heavy and out of shape to bend down. The orange man in the orange jumpsuit would need help picking up all of the Styrofoam coffee cups, beer bottles and used condoms.