A New York judge ruled Friday that a limited silence order against Donald Trump should also apply to his lawyers, citing their comments about his staff and the flood of threats and intimidation against his office since the former president’s fraud trial began .
“The threat and actual violence resulting from heated political rhetoric is well documented,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron wrote in a fiery court order Friday afternoon.
“My rooms have been inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages” since the trial began, he wrote.
Friday’s order prohibits lawyers in the case from making public statements, inside or outside court, about confidential communications between the judge and his staff. But they can still appeal to the clerk in the context of the hearings and proceedings of the court.
“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 judge wrote.
Violating the silence order “will result in serious sanctions,” he added.
Engoron imposed similar restrictions on Trump on October 3, after the former president shared a social media post attacking the judge’s chief clerk. Since then, Trump has violated the silence order twice and fined Engoron first $5,000 and then $10,000.
Engoron’s latest order singled out two of Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Kise and Alina Habba, for what he said made “repeated, inappropriate comments” about the same clerk who attacked Trump.
Kise and Habba say their main complaint is the judge’s habit of using handwritten notes to communicate with his law clerk, which Kise says creates “an appearance of impropriety.”
The clerk sits to the right of Engoron, opposite the witness stand. Passing written notes allows them to communicate without disrupting the proceedings.
Nevertheless, Kise has tried to portray the notes as something sinister and conspiratorial, as if the clerk is a puppet master.
“There is someone else who sends you information very frequently,” he told Engoron in court on Thursday.
These insinuations angered the judge, who warned Kise that he was considering an addition to the gag order.
“Sometimes I think there’s a bit of misogyny when you keep referring to my female chief administrator,” he told Kise.
“I’m not a misogynist. I am very happily married and have a 17-year-old daughter,” Kise said.
Trump’s order merely prohibits him from attacking Engoron court personnel. The former president is free to continue talking about the judge himself, as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed the sweeping civil case.
James alleges that Trump, his two adult sons, the Trump Organization and others engaged in a decade-long scheme to inflate his wealth to obtain various financial benefits, including tax breaks and better lending terms.
James is seeking about $250 million in damages and wants to stop the Trumps from running another business in New York.
Engoron has already found the defendants liable for fraudulently misrepresenting the values of real estate and other assets in financial data. The lawsuit will resolve six other claims by James.
Trump is expected to be called to the witness stand on Monday, following testimony this week from his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
In the days leading up to his testimony, Trump Sr. repeatedly attacked Engoron as a biased and “Trump-hating” judge.