NEW YORK – Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial pass judgement on threatened Friday to hold the previous president in contempt, elevating the opportunity of fining and even jailing him as a result of a disparaging social media post a couple of key courtroom staffer remained visual for weeks on his campaign website after the pass judgement on had ordered it deleted.
Judge Arthur Engoron stated the website’s retention of the post used to be a “blatant violation” of his Oct. 3 order requiring Trump to immediately delete the offending message. The limited gag order, hours after Trump made the post on the trial’s second day, also barred him and others involved in the case from personal attacks on members of Engoron’s judicial staff.
Engoron did not immediately rule on potentially sanctioning Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but noted that “in this current overheated climate” incendiary posts can and feature led to hurt.
Trump, who returned to the trial Tuesday and Wednesday after attending the first three days, wasn’t in court on Friday. During his appearance this week, he reserved his enmity for Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose fraud lawsuit is being decided at the civil trial. Neither are covered by Engoron’s limited gag order.
Trump lawyer Christopher Kise blamed the “very large machine” of Trump’s presidential campaign for allowing a version of his deleted social media post to remain on his website, calling it an unintentional oversight.
Engoron, however, said the buck ultimately stops with Trump — even if it was someone on his campaign who failed to remove the offending post.
“I’ll take this under advisement,” Engoron said after Kise explained the mechanics of how Trump’s post was able to remain online. “But I want to be clear that Donald Trump is still responsible for the large machine even if it’s a large machine.”
Engoron issued a limited gag order on Oct. 3 barring all participants in the case not to smear court personnel after Trump publicly maligned his principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, in what the judge deemed a ”disparaging, untrue and personally identifying” Truth Social post. The pass judgement on ordered Trump to delete the post, which he did, and warned of “serious sanctions” for violations.
The post incorporated a photograph of Greenfield, posing with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., at a public tournament. With it, Trump wrote that it used to be “disgraceful” that Greenfield used to be operating with Engoron on the case.
Before Trump deleted the post from his Truth Social platform, as ordered, his campaign copied the message into an e-mail blast to supporters. That e-mail, with the topic line “ICYMI,” was automatically archived on Trump’s website, Kise said.
“What happened appears truly inadvertent,” Kise said. The lawyer pleaded ignorance to the technological complexities involved in amplifying Trump’s social media posts and public statements, calling the archiving “an unlucky a part of the campaign procedure.”
“President Trump has not made any statements of any kind about court staff, has abided by the order completely, but it appears no one also took down the ICYMI — in case you missed it — link that is in the campaign website in the back pages,” Kise defined.
New York regulation lets in judges to impose fines or imprisonment as punishment for contempt. Last yr, Engoron held Trump in contempt and fined him $110,000 for being sluggish to reply to a subpoena in the investigation that led to the lawsuit.
James’ lawsuit accuses Trump and his corporate of duping banks and insurers by means of giving them closely inflated statements of Trump’s web value and asset values. Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his corporate dedicated fraud, however the trial comes to last claims of conspiracy, insurance coverage fraud and falsifying industry information.