The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial in New York suggested on Friday that the former president might go to jail after he allegedly violated a partial gag order that demanded he take down a social media post disparaging the judge’s law clerk.
On Friday morning, Judge Arthur Engoron announced in court that Trump had shared “an untrue and disparaging post about my clerk” on social media and that he had spoken with the former president about the issue.
“I ordered him to remove the post immediately and he said he did take it down,” Engoron stated. “Despite this order, last night I learned the offending post was never removed from a website. This is a blatant violation of the gag order. I made it clear [that] failure to comply will result in serious sanctions.”
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Nonetheless, Engoron claimed that the post was taken down late on Thursday night following an email from the court, after it had been up on Trump’s 2024 campaign website for 17 days. Early in October, the judge issued the restricted gag order.
“Incendiary untruths can and have led to serious physical harm. I will now allow the defendant to explain why this should not end up with serious sanctions or I could possibly imprison him,” Engoron said.
Trump’s defense attorney, Chris Kise, said, “Based on my understanding this was truly inadvertent.”
“The Truth Social post was taken down when the court asked,” Kise said. “Truth Social was taken down and Trump never made any more comments about court staff, but it appears no one took it down on the campaign website. It is unfortunate and I apologize on behalf of my client.”
The judge said that he would consider the comments made by Trump’s attorney “under advisement,” but he held Trump accountable for the content on his campaign website.
Trump made inferences that the clerk had an improper relationship with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer of New York in both his online posts and public remarks to reporters.
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The claim was refuted by Schumer spokeswoman Allison Biasotti, who described it as “pathetic,” “ridiculous, absurd, and false.” Schumer does not know the clerk, according to her.
Additionally, Trump has attacked Engoron in speeches and emails distributed by his campaign, calling the judge a “far-left Democrat.”
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