On Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron in New York, who is presiding over the continuing civil fraud trial against the Trump Organization, issued a new partial gag order against former President Donald Trump’s legal team.
This gag order forbids Trump’s legal team from discussing the judge’s interactions with Trump’s staff in any further detail and threatens consequences for any future violations. Judge Engoron highlighted the importance of preventing threats and physical damage to his employees over the defendants’ and attorneys’ First Amendment rights to free speech.
Trump’s attorneys raised concerns over Judge Engoron’s professional connection with his senior law clerk, Allison Greenfield, prompting the injunction. Among these were claims that she was biased. In addition, Trump’s legal team expressed alarm over Greenfield’s political donations to Democrats in 2022 and 2023, claiming that they appeared to exceed the $500 ethics code limit.
The defense counsel maintained that these donations proved prejudice on Greenfield’s behalf, but they also linked to a report from Breitbart News, which highlighted a complaint filed by a Wisconsin individual against Engoron regarding these donations. Due to Engoron’s purported familiarity with this allegation, the defense has threatened to seek a mistrial.
In response, Judge Engoron said it was “absolutely untrue” that he had viewed the complaint and discounted the Breitbart News article as unreliable.
The initial limited gag order prevented parties from referring to Judge Engoron’s staff after Trump himself had accused Greenfield of prejudice. In the updated gag order, Judge Engoron justified his legal clerks by calling them public servants who do their jobs as instructed.
He also said that his office had received numerous harassing threats and phone calls, suggesting that the risk to staff safety posed by Trump’s insults about his personnel outweighed Trump’s right to free speech.
Judge Engoron’s initial gag order had been broken twice by Donald Trump, who had been previously fined a total of $15,000.