A Manhattan judge expanded his gag order against former President Donald Trump on Friday to bar his lawyers from mentioning “confidential communications” between the judge and his staff.
“Failure to abide by this directive shall result in serious sanctions,” New York County Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron warned in a three-page ruling.
Engoron justified his order as efforts to keep his staff from violent harm.
Judges and prosecutors whom Trump has criticized have received death threats in the past, including US District Judge Tanya Chutkan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“The threat of, and actual, violence resulting from heated political rhetoric is well-documented,” Engoron wrote in his order.
“Since the commencement of this bench trial, my chambers have been inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages. 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 noted.
On Oct. 3, 2023, Engoron imposed a gag order narrowly barring Trump from making statements about the judge’s staff after he smeared the Engoron’s law clerk on Truth Social, baselessly accusing her of having an affair with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The judge ordered Trump to delete the “untrue” and “disparaging” post, then issued a gag order later in the day. The narrow order did not prevent Trump from making any statements about the judge or New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the lawsuit threatening the former president’s business empire.
“As I have made clear, as the Judge in this case and the trier of fact, the gag order does not apply to me,” Engoron wrote. “However, I will not tolerate, under any circumstances, remarks about my court staff.”
Trump has attacked both the judge and the attorney general via social media repeatedly since that time, without violating the terms of the gag order most of the time.
But eventually crossing the line, Trump has twice been found in violation of the gag order — first by failing to delete his original smear of the clerk on the campaign trail, and then, with an indirect swipe at an individual seated “alongside” the judge.
The former president paid $15,000 in fines for both instances, but those admonishments have not stopped Trump’s attorneys from criticizing the clerk as biased.
On Thursday afternoon, Trump’s lead attorney Christopher Kise made a remark about the judge receiving a note from his clerk, which may have been about “dinner,” a remark that NBC News noted seemingly echoed Trump’s original smear about an alleged romantic relationship involving the clerk. Engoron suggested that Kise’s remarks may have been fueled by “misogyny.”
Kise denied that allegation, and he accused the clerk of showing bias by passing notes to the judge when Trump’s lawyers are speaking. He signaled that he may move for a mistrial based on the clerk’s purported bias. The judge invited Kise to follow through with that if he could find any grounds.
Read the full ruling below:
