Former President Donald Trump is not thankful for the judge overseeing his New York state civil lawsuit. He took aim at him and his law clerk in a Thanksgiving Day social media post.
In the post, Trump described New York Judge Arthur Engoron as a “psycho,” and he criticized him and his principal clerk, Alison Greenfield, for being “politically biased and corrupt” against him.
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Engoron imposed a gag order on Trump last month after the second day of his $250 million trial, but that order was stayed last week pending consideration from a state appeals court panel. Trump’s attorneys are arguing that the order, which prevented the former president from scrutinizing Engoron’s staff, not the justice himself, and others against Trump’s legal team, is unconstitutional and not narrowly tailored — particularly as Trump remains the 2024 Republican primary front-runner.
Lawyers defending the gag order this week cited a sworn statement from a court official detailing the “deluge” of threats made against Greenfield through phone calls, voicemail messages, and emails since Trump first claimed last month that she was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer‘s (D-NY) girlfriend. Greenfield is harassed daily, with some of the remarks being antisemitic in nature, according to Charles Hollon of the New York Public State Court System Safety Department’s Judicial Threats Assessment Unit. Hollon called them “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative.”
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Trump has been fined twice by Engoron for violating the order, both online and in-person, totaling $15,000. Trump’s attorneys contend in the former president’s petition that Engoron’s fines were excessive and that he did not adhere to court rules when he issued them.
Engoron has already found in the case brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James that Trump, his sons, and his business engaged in financial fraud, inflating the value of their assets to obtain favorable loan rates and tax breaks. Engoron is now deliberating damages through a bench trial — a trial conducted without a jury.
