As this week moved towards its end, former President Donald Trump’s team was effectively forced to make another deletion after an earlier gag order from the presiding judge in New York state Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud case against the Trumps. The judge handling the trial is Arthur Engoron.
Engoron imposed those restrictions on public commentary after Trump targeted a clerk for the judge on social media. The original post on Truth Social that contained the ex-president’s vitriol was swiftly taken down under the judge’s pressure — but a copy of the post on a website for Trump remained until exposure this week. The issue was highlighted by the political organization and media operation MeidasTouch, and before court proceedings resumed Friday, there were indications (relayed by The Daily Beast) that the copy of the offending post still appearing on the Trump website was set to become an issue. It was unclear whether the eventual deletion of the website’s copy of the post would be enough to avert that outcome.
Trump is under another gag order in his federal criminal case alleging election interference, which he is appealing. The prohibited subjects for public comments covered by that order include Special Counsel Jack Smith, Smith’s staff, and witnesses, and in issuing the restrictions, that judge — Tanya Chutkan — pointed to recent history like Trump suggesting the execution of Mark Milley, the retired general who until recently was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump is seeking to appeal the gag order, which was imposed at the request of authorities.
In the New York case, it appears that James herself is not covered by the restrictions on speech there. Besides publicly targeting James, Trump has also been responding to her case, which hinges in large part on allegedly deceptive claims of value, by claiming his Florida property Mar-a-Lago is among the most valuable in the world, which is unsupported.
