New York Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the New York trial against former President Donald Trump and other interests close to him over claims from the state’s Attorney General Letitia James of fraud, threatened imprisonment for the ex-president this Friday.
The issue? A copy of a social media post from Trump attacking a clerk for the judge was left up for some time on a website associated with the ex-president, despite a gag order from Engoron that blocked public attacks on members of court staff. The original post (on Truth Social, Trump’s knock-off social media site) was deleted around the time that Engoron imposed those restrictions. The copy of the post was still on that Trump site until this week, however. Engoron subsequently dangling the possibility of prison time for Trump in the event of violations was reported Friday by Jose Pagliery, a journalist with The Daily Beast.
“Defense lawyer Chris Kise says it was inadvertent, and the large “machinery” of the 2024 MAGA campaign simply screwed up,” Pagliery added on X, referring to the copy of the antagonistic post staying up. “Judge doesn’t accept that excuse, saying that Trump is still personally responsible.” The original post — and its copy — targeted that clerk by name and even directed Trump’s followers, who’ve obviously been known to turn to both threats and real-world violence, to a social media page evidently belonging to the individual Trump maligned. The original gag order in this case dates to October 3.
