The former American president draws the wrath of a New York judge.
The judge presiding over the civil fraud trial against Donald Trump in New York on Friday raised the possibility of sending the former president behind bars after the latter refused to comply with an order requiring him to remove a message against the judge’s legal assistant on social media, NBC News reported.
Judge Arthur Engoron explained to the court Friday morning that the candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election had published on his account “a false and derogatory message” about his assistant.
The judge explains that he spoke about this situation with Donald Trump, ordering him to remove the message. “Despite this order, I learned last night that the incriminated message had never been removed from a website. This is a flagrant violation of the injunction,” he explains, specifying that he indicated that non-compliance with this partial gag order would result in “serious sanctions”.
A spokesperson for New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case to court, declined to comment.
Donald Trump’s lawyer, Christopher Kise, told NBC that he believed it was “really an oversight.”
Gagging measure
Arthur Engoron took the gag order on October 3 after Donald Trump shared on social media a message of the clerk, identified by name, posing with the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who is not not involved in the matter. Trump called her Schumer’s “girlfriend.”
Christopher Kise told NBC that the post was removed from the Truth social network after the judge’s ruling, “and Trump never made any further comments about court staff.”
The message remained on Donald Trump’s campaign website, which is “regrettable” according to his lawyer, who apologized on behalf of him. Donald Trump is accused of inflating the value of his assets by billions of dollars in order to obtain better loan and insurance terms.
The businessman, who is the first or former president of the United States to be criminally indicted, is being charged in four separate cases.
2023-10-20 16:56:00
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