A judge on Thursday reaffirmed the $10,000 fine imposed on Donald Trump for an extrajudicial comment during Trump’s civil business fraud trial in New York, a sanction that the former president’s lawyers argued was unfair and unconstitutional.
Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump on Wednesday after finding that his comments to television cameras outside the courtroom violated a limited gag order. He prohibits participants in the trial from publicly commenting on the judge’s staff.
Outside the courthouse Wednesday, the Republican presidential front-runner complained that Engoron, a Democrat, is “a very partisan judge with a very partisan person sitting next to him, maybe even much more partisan than him.”
Those words came after one of Trump’s lawyers complained earlier that morning about the judge’s top law clerk, the same one Trump had disparaged weeks earlier in a social media post that prompted the gag order.
Called to the witness stand Wednesday to explain his comment about the person “next to” the judge, Trump said he was not talking about the clerk but about Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, who was testifying at the time.
On Wednesday, Engoron called Trump’s argument “not credible” and noted that the secretary is closer to him than the witness stand.
Trump’s lawyers insisted again Thursday that Trump was talking about Cohen. Attorney Christopher Kise noted that just after Trump’s reference to the person “sitting next to” the judge, the former president said: “We are doing very well, the facts speak very loudly. He is a totally discredited witness,” referring to Cohen.
Kise argued that meant the person “next to” the judge was also Cohen, and asked Engeron to reconsider the fine. Kise also argued that if the judge held that the comment was indeed referring to the secretary, the fine would infringe on Trump’s First Amendment rights.
“Your business is being attacked and you have the right to comment, fairly, on what you perceive in public hearing,” Kise said.
Engoron was cool to the constitutional argument: “I don’t believe that protecting my staff is infringing on anyone’s First Amendment rights,” he explained. But he agreed to examine the full returns and reconsider the fine.
He later decided to keep it, citing “a brief but clear transition” between the mention of the person “next to” the judge and the comment about the “discredited witness.”
“To me, that was a clear transition from one person to another, and I believe the person originally referred to was my secretary,” Engoron said.
Trump was not in court Thursday. He has voluntarily attended several more days.
The case involves a lawsuit that New York Attorney General Letitia James filed last year against Trump, his company and top executives. The Democratic attorney general said Trump and his company chronically lied about his wealth in financial statements provided to banks, insurers and others. Trump denies wrongdoing.
Before the trial, Engoron found that Trump, Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg and other defendants committed years of fraud with the financial statements.
The civil suit concerns allegations of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsification of business records. James is seeking $250 million in fines and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.
Engoron already ordered a court-appointed receiver to take control of some Trump companies, casting doubt on future oversight of Trump Tower and other major properties. A court of appeals crashed the app of that aspect of the Engoron ruling, at least for now.
2023-10-27 01:03:44
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