By The opinion
03 Nov 2023, 16:57 PM EDT
Judge Arthur Engoron once again dotted the i’s former President Donald Trump’s legal teamafter negative comments against judicial personnel.
Now the former president’s legal team has prohibited from commenting further on confidential communications between the judge and his staff inside or outside the courtroom.
In case of not obeying said order of Judge Engoron, Trump lawyers could face “serious sanctions”indicates a court document.
“Since the beginning of this trial, my courtrooms have been inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages,” the judge said. “The First Amendment right of defendants and their attorneys to comment on my staff is far outweighed by the need to protect them from threats and physical harm.”
The court document signed by Ergoron indicates that it has prohibited the “parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about staff members.”
He adds: “Attacks on staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I will not tolerate them under any circumstances… I make it clear that disobedience to these guidelines will result in severe sanctions.”
The judge recalled that he demanded that Trump remove messages from one of his campaign websites, but when that did not happen, he imposed a sentence. $5,000 fine.
Another comment by Trump also generated a $10,000 fine.
“This judge is very partisan with the person sitting next to him being very partisan, maybe more partisan than him,” Trump posted.
During the first week of the trial, Engoron enforced a gag order, but has now escalated the order.
Engoron said he has the right to seek advice from his team and that Trump’s lawyers have no right to know details about it.
“She is a public official, she is doing what I ask of her… Sometimes I think there may be a bit of misogyny,” the judge said of lawyer Chris Kise’s reactions.
Judge Engoron leads the trial of the former president, his children and his companies for fraud by modifying the price of some of their properties.
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