NEW YORK — An appeals court on Thursday reimposed the gag order that prevented Donald Trump from commenting on court staff. in the civil trial against the former president for financial fraud in New York.
The four-judge panel’s decision comes two weeks after an individual appeals judge stayed the order while the appeal process unfolded.
There was no immediate comment from Trump’s lawyers.
Judge Arthur Engoron imposed the gag order on Oct. 3 after Trump posted disparaging comments online against the judge’s law clerk. The message, which included unfounded content about the assistant’s personal life, was posted on the internet on the second day of the trial for the lawsuit filed by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
James claims that Trump exaggerated his wealth in financial statements used to obtain loans and close deals. Trump denies wrongdoing. The former president, a favorite for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, maintains that the lawsuit is a political attack by James, a Democrat.
Engoron later fined Trump $15,000 for violating the gag order and expanded it to include his lawyers after they questioned adviser Allison Greenfield’s prominent role on the bench, where she sits next to the judge, exchanging notes and advising him. during the testimony.
Trump’s lawyers filed a lawsuit against Engoron that challenged his gag order as an abuse of power.
State lawyers had tried to link Trump’s comments to an increase in unpleasant calls and messages directed at the judge and law clerk.
A court security captain wrote in an affidavit filed with the appeals court last week that Greenfield has been receiving between 20 and 30 calls per day on his personal cell phone and between 30 and 50 messages per day on social media, LinkedIn and two personal email addresses.
Since the gag order was lifted, the captain said, about half of the harassing and disparaging messages Greenfield received were anti-Semitic. The captain reported that the hundreds of harassing voicemails she received were the equivalent of a 275-page single-spaced transcript.
Trump had posted about Greenfield on Wednesday, referring to the judge’s “very disturbed and angry law clerk.”
2023-11-30 16:42:29
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