(AmericanProsperity.com) – The judge in the civil fraud trial against former president Donald Trump fined him $10,000 on October 25, as he accused the Republican leader of putting the lives of the court staff in danger and breaking a gagging order. Judge Arthur Engoron also rejected Trump’s claims that he was speaking to journalists about a witness instead of a court clerk.
The trial against the GOP presidential candidate stems from a $250 million legal case that New York Attorney General Letitia James filed in 2022 against him. In that lawsuit, she alleged that Trump and some of the main executives of the Trump Organization conspired to raise the former president’s net worth on financial statements provided to insurers and banks to secure loans. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing on this matter.
Engoron explained that Trump violated the gag order as he spoke with reporters about his law clerk Allison Greenfield. In his conversation with journalists during a break, the former president said that the judge was partisan and claimed Engoron had someone who was “even much more partisan” sitting alongside him.
About these comments, the judge said he’s very “protective” of his staff members and noted that Trump’s comments were dangerous and could even end with someone being “killed.” The former president’s lawyer Christopher Kise said that his client was referring to his former fixer and attorney Michael, who was testifying the same day.
The judge conducted a brief hearing to ascertain the object of the Republican leader’s criticism and called him to the witness stand. He asked Trump if he had referred to his law clerk as “biased” on previous occasions. The former president said he was referring to Cohen in his comments to the press, but noted that Greenfield had been “biased against us.”
Once the former president left the witness stand, the judge said he determined that the witness wasn’t credible and announced the $10,000 fine.
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