Former President Donald Trump has been hit with a $10,000 fine by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron for allegedly violating a gag order the judge had issued earlier this month. Just five days ago, Judge Engoron fined the former President $5,000 for violating the court issued gag order. When to issuing the earlier fine, Engoron threatened to throw Trump in jail for any future violations.
Engoron, the Democrat judge overseeing New York Attorney General Letitia James’s $250 million fraud prosecution of Donald Trump, warned the former President regarding any possible future violations of the court’s gag order, “Don’t do it again or it will be worse.” Earlier in the day, Trump – while speaking to the press outside the courtroom – called Engoron a “…very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”
The comments prompted Engoron to summon Trump to the stand, believing that the reference to the “person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him” meant the judge’s law clerk Allison Greenfield who is, in fact, a very partisan operative.
The gag order prohibits the former President from making references to court staff, including Greenfield. Trump insisted he was referencing his former lawyer Michael Cohen and not Greenfield. Engoron ultimately disagreed. Reports from inside the courtroom indicate Trump abruptly left after the $10,000 fine was handed down.
Prior to Engoron’s gag order, former President Trump had fervently criticized his seemingly partisan prosecution at the hands of Letitia James. Earlier this month, Trump posted on social media prior to his initial court appearance: “I’m going to Court tomorrow morning to fight for my name and reputation against a corrupt and racist Attorney General, Letitia James, who campaigned on ‘getting Trump,’ and a Trump Hating Judge who is unfair, unhinged, and vicious in his PURSUIT of me.”
Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba has repeatedly emphasized just how weak Attorney General James’s case is against the former President. Habba has also stressed that previous political statements made by James against Trump illustrate that this is a partisan prosecution.