Trending: ‘contempt,’ ‘held in contempt’

Lookups for contempt and held in contempt spiked on April 25, 2022, when former president Donald Trump was found to be in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents requested by New York's attorney general.

Trump is being investigated by the attorney general in a civil case to determine whether he inflated the value of his assets when seeking bank loans. Trump's lawyers have said that they could not find the requested documents in the case, which was opened in 2019, and a New York judge assessed a penalty of $10,000 per day for not providing them.

Contempt in this context means:

: willful disobedience to or open disrespect of a court, judge, or legislative body

Contempt of court is defined as:

: willful disobedience or open disrespect of the orders, authority, or dignity of a court or judge acting in a judicial capacity by disruptive language or conduct or by failure to obey the court's orders

Held in contempt is defined as:

: considered by the court to have broken the law by disobeying or disrespecting the judge

Contempt is a word that was borrowed from French and Latin, from the Latin word meaning "to show no respect for" or "to despise."

A New York judge on Monday held Donald J. Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents to the state’s attorney general, an extraordinary rebuke of the former president.
—The New York Times, April 25, 2022