Donald Trump returned briefly to the campaign trail Wednesday and called the judge presiding over his hush money trial "crooked" a day after he was held in contempt of court and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order.
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Trump's remarks at events in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan were being closely watched after he received a $9,000 fine for making public statements about people connected to the criminal case. In imposing the fine for posts on Trump's Truth Social account and campaign website, Judge Juan M. Merchan said that if Trump continued to violate his orders, he would "impose an incarceratory punishment."
“There is no crime. I have a crooked judge. He's a totally conflicted judge,” Trump said speaking to supporters at an event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, claiming again that this and other cases against him are led by the White House to undermine his campaign.
The former president is trying to achieve a balancing act unprecedented in American history by running for a second term as the presumptive Republican nominee while also fighting felony charges in New York. Trump frequently goes after Merchan, prosecutors and potential witnesses at his rallies and on social media, attack lines that play well with his supporters but that have potentially put him in further legal jeopardy.
Later at a rally in Freeland, Michigan, he said he was being forced to spend days in a "kangaroo court room," and claimed without evidence the district attorney was taking orders from the Biden administration.
“I've got to do two of these things a day. You know why? Because I'm in New York all the time with the Biden trial," he said. "It's a fake trial. They do it to try and take your powers away, try and take your candidate away.”
Even before the hush money trial got underway on April 15, Trump has held just a handful of public campaign events since becoming his party's presumptive nominee in March.
The gag order bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his hush money case. Trump is still free to criticize the judge and the district attorney.