NEW YORK — Donald Trump was threatened with jail time by Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan on Monday after being found in criminal contempt again for the tenth violation of a gag order in his hush money case.

In his sternest warning yet, Merchan, in stunning courtroom remarks, said it appeared the $1,000 fines he has issued for Trump’s violations were not serving as a deterrent and that he must start considering more severe punishment. He told the Republican front-runner, “It’s important you understand that the last thing I want to do is put you in jail.”

“You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next (POTUS) as well,” the judge said.

Merchan said Trump’s repeated violations were “direct attacks on the rule of law” and that he “cannot allow that to continue.”

“The magnitude of such a decision is not lost on me, but at the end of the day, I have a job to do and part of that job is to protect the dignity of the judicial system,” Merchan addressed Trump.

In a written order on Monday, Merchan found Trump had violated the order in an interview on the conservative channel Real America’s Voice when he talked about the jury and how it was selected.

“You know (the judge is) rushing the trial like crazy. Nobody’s ever seen a thing go like this. That jury was picked so fast – 95% democrats. The area’s mostly all democrat. You think of it as a – just a purely democrat area. It’s a very unfair situation, that I can tell you,” Trump said in the April 22 interview.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies that allege he repeatedly and fraudulently falsified business records to cover up the reimbursement to fixer Michael Cohen to disguise the underlying election conspiracy.

After the warning, prosecutors called their tenth witness to the stand — former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney.

Over the last two weeks, the prosecution has laid out an alleged conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election. They are now expected to begin linking that scheme to the falsification of business records charges Trump is facing, which relate to his alleged reimbursement to Cohen for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels in 2017.

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