The New York judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial threatened on Friday to impose “serious sanctions,” including possible jail time, on the former president for not complying with a partial gag order.
Judge Arthur Engoron said a disparaging comment about one of his clerks had not been immediately removed from a Trump 2024 White House campaign website despite his order that it be taken down.
Engoron slapped a limited gag order on the former president earlier this month after he insulted a court clerk in a social media post on his Truth Social platform.
The post was removed from Truth Social the same day, but the judge complained in court on Friday that it was not immediately taken down from the campaign website.
“Despite this clear order, last night I learned that the subject’s offending post was never removed from the website DonaldJTrump.com and in fact had been on that website for the last 17 days,” Engoron said in remarks reported by US media and confirmed to AFP by a court spokesman.
“I understand that it was removed late last night, but only in response to an email from this court,” the judge said.
“In the current climate, incendiary untruths can, and in same cases already have, led to serious physical harm and worse,” he said.
Engoron said he would give Trump’s lawyers “the opportunity to explain why this blatant violation of the gag order should not result in serious sanctions, including financial penalties, holding Donald Trump in contempt and possibly imprisoning him.”
According to NBC News, one of Trump’s attorneys, Chris Kise, told the judge that it was an oversight. “It is unfortunate and I apologize on behalf of my client,” Kise was quoted as saying.
The judge reportedly said he would take the lawyer’s remarks “under advisement.”
On October 3, as Trump sat at the defense table, Engoron said he was issuing a partial gag order “forbidding all parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any of my staff.”
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and his two eldest sons are accused in the New York civil fraud case of inflating the value of the real estate assets of the Trump Organization to receive more favorable bank loans and insurance terms.
Trump has personally attacked the judge on numerous occasions, calling him a “Trump-hating judge,” but Engoron, in his verbal gag order, only ordered a halt to attacks on his court staff.
On Monday, the federal judge set to preside over Trump’s trial for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election also imposed a partial gag order on the former president.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the 77-year-old Trump not to publicly attack prosecutors, court staff or potential witnesses ahead of the trial scheduled to begin in Washington in March 2024.
