Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email
Please enter a valid email address
Please enter a valid email address
SIGN UP
I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice
Thanks for signing up to the
Inside Washington email
{{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}
A state appeals court in New York has reinstated a gag order in Donald Trump’s fraud trial, after court officials revealed the wave of death threats and attacks against members of the court staff.
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron put the gag order in place to protect his chief clerk and other court staff from the former president’s abuse and subsequent attacks that have flooded his office.
A state appellate court judge temporarily froze the orders earlier this month, “considering the constitutional and statutory rights at issue”.
On Thursday, the appeals court allowed the gag orders to stand.
Moments later, Mr Trump lashed out on his Truth Social account with a series of attacks and unfounded claims about the judge and his family, including his wife and their son.
RECOMMENDED
Trump hits out at judge’s wife as fraud trial gag order reinstated: Live
Undo
Robert De Niro left raging after anti-Trump speech censored
Undo
织姫株式会社
年间1000亿稼ぐ投资家「上がる株と下がる株の共通点知れば负けナシ！」织姫株式会社| Sponsored Sponsored
Undo
北の快适工房
楽天1位！爪杀菌ジェル│「正直、谛めてました」でも、使ってビックリ北の快适工房| Sponsored Sponsored
Undo
Powered by Taboola Powered by Taboola
Judge Engoron and his principal law clerk Allison Greenfield received “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment, according to a recent court filing.
Transcriptions of threatening voicemails after Mr Trump first targeted Judge Engoron’s chief clerk fill more than 275 single-spaced pages, according to the filing from Charles Hollon, an officer-captain with the court’s Department of Public Safety assigned to a judicial threats unit.
The threats against them are “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative,” he wrote.
A lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James accuses the former president, his two adult sons and chief business associates in his Trump Organization empire of grossly inflating his net worth and assets in financial statements given to banks and lenders to receive favourable financing terms.
Promoted stories
売れ残ったノートパソコン |検索広告
売れ残りノートパソコンの叩き売り - 大坂 衝撃価格売れ残ったノートパソコン |検索広告
Undo
by Taboola by Taboola
Sponsored Links Sponsored Links
Promoted Links Promoted Links
Judge Engoron has already found the defendants liable for fraud.
The trial stemming from the lawsuit, now in its ninth week, threatens to collapse his real estate empire in the state and could result in tens of millions of dollars in fines against the defendants.
On the trial’s second day, Mr Trump amplified false claims about Ms Greenfield on his Truth Social and steps outside Judge Engoron’s courtroom, prompting the judge to order Mr Trump to delete the “untrue” and “disparaging” statements before issuing a gag order that blocks all parties in the trial from attacking the court’s staff.
The judge later found that Mr Trump violated the order twice, incurring $15,000 in fines. He also extended the order to include Mr Trump’s attorneys, who then appealed.
On Monday, his attorneys appeared to downplay the threats that have inundated the court, claiming that the “sole cognizable justification” to gag the former president “is that an unknown third party may react in a hostile or offensive manner” to his speech.
“Since before the trial began and continuing thereafter, certain individuals, to whom there is no indication Petitioners have any connection or exercise any control, have engaged in behavior that Petitioners do not condone,” according to the filing from Mr Trump’s legal team.
“The communications themselves, while vile and reprehensible, do not constitute a clear and present danger of imminent harm as required under established precedent,” they wrote.
Earlier this month, Judge Engoron shot down what he called “unpersuasive” First Amendment arguments from Mr Trump’s attorneys against his gag orders, pointing to threats of political violence that have surrounded the former president’s criminal and civil cases since his first indictment earlier this year.
The judge has repeatedly stressed that comments about him are fair game, but “the First Amendment right of defendants and their attorneys to comment on my staff is far and away outweighed by the need to protect them from threats and physical harm,” he wrote.
After the gag order was paused, Mr Trump continued to berate the judge, the attorney general and the clerk on his Truth Social page.
Mr Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, is scheduled to appear on the witness stand in his civil trial for a second time next month.
In his previous testimony, he repeatedly insulted the attorney general, the judge overseeing the case, the trial itself and the lawyers who questioned him as he dodged responsibility for the allegedly fraudulent valuations of his net worth and assets.
Federal judges also are reviewing a gag order against Mr Trump in a case surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
During a hearing last week, a three-judge federal appeals court panel was skeptical of arguments from his legal team to overturn a gag order that blocks him from attacking witnesses and prosecutors in the criminal conspiracy case.
More about Donald Trump Arthur Engoron gag order New York Letitia James Trump Organization
Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments
1/ 1Gag order reinstated in Trump’s fraud trial
Gag order reinstated in Trump’s fraud trial
Donald Trump
via REUTERS
Promoted stories
RAID: Shadow Legends
大坂市: 40歳未満はこのゲームにご用心究极の无料ヒーローコレクターゲームRAID: Shadow Legends| Sponsored Sponsored
ゲームをプレイ
Undo
株式会社ファーマフーズ
【アマゾンで爆売れ】明治薬品が开発した简単に歯を白くする方法【本日半额以下】明治薬品开発のホワイトニングジェルが累计贩売数100万本突破！株式会社ファーマフーズ| Sponsored Sponsored
详细
Undo
Yahoo!不动産
「住所だけ！?」家の価値を调べられるサイトが凄すぎYahoo!不动産| Sponsored Sponsored
Undo
Read More Comments
Collapse Comments
？ Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Subscribe
Already subscribed? Log in