Obama-Appointed Judge Issues Another Gag Order, Goes After Trump’s lawyers This Time

Judge Arthur Engoron has been in the news for all the wrong reasons since President Trump’s civil fraud trial started.

Watch Democrat Judge Arthur Engoron laugh, smile and smirk as Donald Trump appears in court.

These people are openly celebrating what they’re doing.

Disgusting. pic.twitter.com/HR6HpVBCHb

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 2, 2023

On Friday, he made the news again after issuing another gag order. This time it wasn’t the president he was trying to silence, it was the president’s lawyers.

Judge Arthur Engoron has expanded the gag order in the Trump family civil fraud trial in New York.

Trump's attorneys are now prohibited from making any further comments, inside or outside of the courtroom, about confidential communications between Engoron and his staff. pic.twitter.com/9X2ntKv73a

— The Recount (@therecount) November 3, 2023

Trump’s lawyers have consistently butted heads with Engoron regarding his clerk during the trial, accusing her of “rolling her eyes” during testimony and saying she is unfairly influencing the judge.

The judge has been overprotective of his clerk since the trial started and fined the 45^th President $10,000 last week because he made a comment about her.

From Politico:

Judge Engoron, said in a three–page court filing that he issued the gag order to protect his court staff, noting that since the start of the trial, “my chambers have been inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages.”

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“The threat of, and actual, violence resulting from political rhetoric is well-documented,” Engoron wrote.

The gag order is the second the judge has issued during the trial. It came after a long-simmering spat between Trump’s lawyers and Engoron flared up Friday when they engaged in nearly 30 minutes of debate about the judge’s principal law clerk, who has been a target of the former president since the start of the trial.

More recently, Trump’s lawyers have escalated their own grousing about Greenfield, who sits alongside Engoron on the bench. One lawyer, Alina Habba, complained last week about Greenfield’s “eye rolls and constant whispering.” On Thursday, the judge accused another Trump lawyer, Chris Kise, of possible misogyny after Kise made a passing reference to Greenfield. That also prompted the judge to threaten to broaden his gag order.

At the beginning of court proceedings Friday, Kise continued to seize on Greenfield, suggesting she has shown “demonstrable bias or at least the appearance of that,” citing a news story he eventually disclosed was from the right-wing online outlet Breitbart, drawing audible groans in the courtroom.

🚨Allison Greenfield likely violated judicial rules against court officers making excessive political donations

Judge Engoron was advised of her violations after a 72pg complaint was filed w/the NY Bar the same day he issued Trump’s gag order

INVESTIGATEhttps://t.co/apBAwaN8oi pic.twitter.com/GwFhANSTIG

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) November 3, 2023

Engoron said it was “absolutely untrue” that he had received such a complaint and said he hadn’t heard of the allegations until Kise had described them. “I’ll let everybody in the room decide what to think of Breitbart,” the judge added.