NEW YORK — Donald Trump was held in criminal contempt for violating a gag order prohibiting him from commenting on participants in his hush-money case and fined $9,000 as his Manhattan trial entered its third week on Tuesday.

State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan made the decision moments after taking the bench and after telling Trump he’d let him attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.

In an accompanying written order, the judge said the nine offending Truth Social posts, which referred to the jury and anticipated witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, had to be taken down by 2:15 p.m. and that further violations could land Trump in jail.

The judge didn’t buy Trump’s argument that sharing things others had said didn’t violate the gag order.

“There can be no doubt whatsoever that Defendant’s intent and purpose when reposting is to communicate to his audience that he endorses and adopts the posted statement as his own,” Merchan wrote.

Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsification of business records, alleging he concealed reimbursement to Cohen for paying off Daniels by recording it as payment for legal services.

“Defendant is hereby warned that the court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment.”

The decision came in response to prosecutors’ request to punish Trump for what they said were more than a dozen violations of a gag order prohibiting him from commenting on trial participants and additional monetary sanctions. Since that request, they said he’s violated it another four times, which Merchan will consider at a hearing on Thursday.

Cohen’s former banker says hush money payment to Daniels was concealed

Gary Farro finished on the stand at around 11 a.m. after delving into Michael Cohen’s efforts to discreetly pay porn star Stormy Daniels so she would stay silent about an alleged tryst with Trump.

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