Trump fined $US 10,000 for violating New York gag order
The impost came after the former president was found to have breached an order not to criticise court staff.
New York: The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York fined the former US president $US10,000 ($15,900) on Wednesday for violating an order not to criticise court staff.
Judge Arthur Engoron imposed the fine — Mr Trump’s second — after determining that comments he made to reporters during a break in the trial violated a partial gag order issued three weeks ago.
Judge Engoron slapped a limited gag order on Mr Trump on October 3 after he insulted the judge’s principal law clerk in a post on his Truth Social platform.
The offending post was deleted from Truth Social but the judge fined Mr Trump $US5000 last week for not promptly removing it from his 2024 presidential campaign website.
The latest fine came after Mr Trump said Judge Engoron was a “very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”
Mr Trump’s lawyers said the former president was referring to witness Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former lawyer turned bitter foe, and not to the judge’s clerk who sits near him in court.
The judge briefly called Mr Trump to the witness stand to explain himself and the former president repeated that he was referring to Mr Cohen.
After Mr Trump spoke, the judge said “the defendant was not credible” and imposed the fine.
Mr Trump abruptly left the courtroom shortly afterward.
The frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Mr Trump and his two eldest sons are accused of inflating the value of the real estate assets of the Trump Organisation to receive more favourable bank loans and insurance terms.
The former president has repeatedly attacked Judge Engoron, calling him a “Trump-hating judge,” but the October 3 gag order only ordered a halt to attacks on court staff.
The federal judge set to preside over Mr Trump’s March trial for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election also imposed a partial gag order on the former president but temporarily lifted it to give his legal team time to submit their objections.
AFP
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