Secret Service Meets With NYC Jail Officials Ahead Of Trump Trial Verdict, Report

As closing arguments take place in the business fraud trial brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, the Secret Service has reportedly met with New York City jail officials to prepare for the potential imprisonment of the former president.

As an ex-president, Trump is guarded around the clock by the Secret Service for the rest of his life, irrespective of the location. A New York corrections source told CBS News that the Secret Service has met with officials to discuss if the jury came back with a guilty verdict and Trump was taken to jail. The jury is set to begin deliberations on Thursday.

The discussions come as the 12-person jury hears the closing arguments from the defense and prosecution as to whether to find Trump guilty or acquit him after a lengthy trial. Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, was reprimanded by Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday after Blanche pleaded with the jury not to send his client to prison. "Making a comment like that is highly inappropriate," Merchan told Trump's lawyer, per The New York Times. "It is simply not allowed, period. It's hard for me to imagine how that was accidental."

As previously reported by the DC Enquirer, Judge Merchan threatened to throw Trump in jail if he continued to violate the gag order imposed on him by the court. The gag order against Trump restricts him from commenting on witnesses in the case, jurors, and others involved. Earlier this month, Merchan ruled that the 45th president violated the order a 10th time and thus fined him $1,000. The judge addressed Trump directly in the opening minutes of court, telling him that "the last thing" he wanted to do was to throw a former president and possibly future president in jail for being in contempt. The judge told the defendant that the various violations of the gag order are a "direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue."

"The magnitude of this decision is not lost on me, but at the end of the day, I have a job to do," Merchan explained. "So as much as I don't want to impose a jail sanction...I want you to understand that I will if necessary and appropriate." In the judge's order, Merchan emphasized that future violations would be met with possible incarceration. "Defendant is hereby put on notice that if appropriate and warranted, future violations of its lawful orders will be punishable by incarceration," the order reads.

In response to the decision, Trump told reporters after court earlier this month that going to jail for expressing his thoughts on the case would be worth it. "I have to watch every word I tell you, people," Trump told the press. "You ask me a question, a simple question, I'd like to give it, but I can't talk about it because this judge has given me a gag order and said, you'll go to jail if you violate it and frankly, you know what? Our Constitution is much more important than jail. It's not even close. I'll make that sacrifice any day. But what's happening here is a disgrace."

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