Trump Fires Off, Smokes Judge He Says Has 'Gone Crazy in His Hatred'
Former President Donald Trump may have put himself in line for another $10,000 fine for violating a gag order placed on him in his civil fraud trial in New York when called Judge Arthur F. Engoron “crazy” and “Radical Left.”
Trump made the statements Thursday morning on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2021.
“The Judge in the New York State A.G. case refuses to accept the overturning of his decisions by the Appeals Court,” the former president wrote. “This is a first in the history of the State!
“HE HAS GONE CRAZY IN HIS HATRED OF ‘TRUMP,'” he added (emphasis original throughout).
“Also, their ‘STAR’ witness just admitted his statements were all a big lie. He broke down in court. The Radical Left Judge said he doesn’t care,” Trump continued in his post.
“He is trying to protect RACIST A.G. Letitia James, who has no case, lost the appeal, but has a tyrannical and unhinged Trump Hating Judge,” he argued. “She campaigned for A.G. on, ‘I Will Get Trump,’ long before she knew anything about me.
“This is Judicial Misconduct,” Trump concluded, “coupled with Prosecutorial Misconduct, and somebody from the State of New York must step in and stop this Complete & Total Miscarriage of Justice!”
Trump has already been fined twice for violating what the establishment media consistently refers to as a “narrow gag order,” as The New York Times did Thursday.
“This court is way beyond the ‘warning’ stage,” Engoron wrote when he issued the first $5,000 punishment, which he called “nominal,” according to the Times.
The following week, he fined Trump $10,000 despite the former president’s sworn testimony that his comments didn’t refer to Engoron’s clerk.
The judge said Trump’s statement in his own defense in the matter “rings hollow and untrue.”
Trump has not yet appealed Engoron’s gag order, although members of his legal team have suggested that such a challenge may be forthcoming.
“We have significant concerns about the constitutionality of limiting President Trump’s right to comment on what he observes in the courtroom,” Trump attorney Christopher Kise told the Times.
Trump’s first violation was apparently an oversight — the first $5,000 fine was imposed because of a social media post that had remained on his campaign website “for weeks,” according to the Times.
The second, however, appeared more intentional, as Trump told reporters that Ergoron was “very partisan” and had a “perhaps even much more partisan” person sitting next to him, an apparent reference to his clerk.
Nonetheless, even the liberal American Civil Liberties Union has weighed in on Trump’s side regarding a gag order placed on the former president in another of his trials, in which he’s accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.
“Donald Trump has said many things. Much that he has said has been patently false and has caused great harm to countless individuals, as well as to the republic itself,” the ACLU wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief submitted in that case. “But Trump retains a First Amendment right to speak, and the rest of us retain a right to hear what he has to say.”
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