Trump heads to Wisconsin, Michigan after being hit with gag order fine

[May 01, 2024]  By Nathan Layne
 
(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will hold rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, a day after the judge in his New York criminal trial fined him for violating a gag order and warned he could be jailed for further infractions. 

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he meets with Union workers in New York City, U.S., April 25, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

Trump's visit to the two battleground states will mark his first major campaign events since the April 15 start of the New York trial, in which he is accused of falsifying business records concerning a hush money payment to a porn star.

The first former U.S. president to stand trial on a criminal charge, Trump is having to schedule his signature campaign events around court proceedings that are expected to last through May.

The rallies on Wednesday in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Freeland, Michigan, could give him an opportunity to speak about the gag order penalties.

On Tuesday, Justice Juan Merchan fined Trump $1,000 for each of nine online statements that Merchan said violated his order not to criticize witnesses in the trial, including one in which Trump called his former lawyer Michael Cohen a "serial liar."

Trump is charged with falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign to buy the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels about a 2006 sexual encounter she has said they had. Trump has denied any such relationship with Daniels and has pleaded not guilty.

Polls show Trump is locked in a close race with Democratic President Joe Biden ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

In Waukesha, Trump will talk about the impact of inflation on households, crime and contrast his plans to crack down on immigration with Biden's "weak border policies," the campaign said in an email announcing the rally last week.

Wisconsin and Michigan are among the six or seven swing states expected to determine the outcome of the election. Trump lost Wisconsin to Biden by just 20,000 votes and lost Michigan by 154,000 votes.

Trump had planned to hold a rally in North Carolina on April 20 but canceled the event due to a storm.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Washington, editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lincoln Feast.)

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