Former US president Donald Trump was back in the news on Wednesday after he was fined $10,000 by Justice Arthur Engoron — the New York judge who is overseeing his civil fraud trial— for a second violation of a gag order barring him from disparaging court staff.
Engoron had imposed the order on October 3 (Tuesday) after Trump shared a photo on social media of the judge’s top clerk posing with US Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and falsely called her Schumer’s “girlfriend.”
During a break in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James concerning Trump’s business practices, the former president told reporters in a hallway, “This judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”
Conjecturing that Trump was alluding to his clerk, Engoron described the remarks as a “blatant” breach of the gag order.
Trump made his statements in the corridor as his former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, was giving a second day of testimony against him.
In his brief appearance on the witness stand before being penalised, Trump informed Engoron that he had made reference to “you and Cohen” in his statement.
The notion that Cohen was the “partisan” individual Trump had named was rejected by the judge, as Christopher Kise, Trump’s attorney, also expressed.
