![‘He really pushes the boundaries’: How Trump has challenged judges trying to rein him in](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/gettyimages-2105324073.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill)
‘He really pushes the boundaries’: How Trump has challenged judges trying to rein him in
CNN
It took Donald Trump less than 24 hours to push the boundaries set by Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order in his New York criminal trial.
It took Donald Trump less than 24 hours to test the boundaries of Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order in his New York criminal trial. In two posts on his Truth Social account, the former president attacked Merchan for issuing the gag order – and he went after the judge’s daughter for her liberal political work, exploiting the ambiguous language in the order that didn’t explicitly forbid discussion of Merchan’s family. On Monday, Merchan pushed back, expanding the gag order to cover his family – though the judge remains fair game for Trump – and attempting to limit Trump’s vitriol two weeks before the trial is set to begin. Merchan’s need to issue a second gag order highlights the significant and unique challenge that Trump poses for the judge overseeing the unprecedented first criminal trial in US history of a former president and current presidential candidate. In the past six months, Trump has sat in a half-dozen different courtrooms before judges overseeing his four criminal and two of his civil cases, along with a federal appellate court. A CNN review of Trump’s appearances shows how the former president has taken repeated steps both inside and outside the courtroom to test the limits of judges – and the judicial system – trying to rein him in. “He really pushes the boundaries. He walks up to the line and doesn’t quite cross the line, but he stomps on it – and in essence, taunts the court,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a CNN legal analyst and former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
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A Justice Department watchdog has found that former Attorney General Bill Barr was personally involved in the decision to publicize an incident from the 2020 election – nine mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being discarded in a dumpster in Pennsylvania – that flamed the false narrative of widespread voter fraud.
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President Joe Biden is expected to be as forceful as he has ever been in urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire agreement when the two leaders meet privately at the White House Thursday afternoon, sources tell CNN, as US officials believe that a deal may be on the cusp.
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California’s Park Fire grows 7 times larger in hours as Oregon battles country’s biggest active fire
The largest active wildfire in the United States has scorched nearly 270,000 acres in eastern Oregon, as nearly 80 large active wildfires are burning in the US, including a California blaze that exploded in size overnight. Here’s the latest: