Donald Trump is continuing his habit of sprawling, public attacks on a remarkably wide array of figures who could be grouped in some imagining into those opposing him, and the list of his targets has recently included the wife of Judge Arthur Engoron.
The New York judge is currently handling the fraud trial on allegations against the Trumps from New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who has alleged a pattern at the Trump family’s business of falsified valuations for key assets. Trump specifically circulated the accusation that the judge’s wife had made disparaging social media comments about the ex-president on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter). A court system spokesperson says Engoron’s wife didn’t make the posts, and she herself has indicated she didn’t even have an account.
“Justice Engoron’s wife has sent no social media posts regarding the former president,” the spokesman, Al Baker, said, as publicized by The Messenger. Claims otherwise evidently originate with far-right activist Laura Loomer, an avid supporter of the former president who’s unsuccessfully run for Congress multiple times in Florida.
A separate New York court on Thursday reinstated a gag order in the case blocking public comments from the former president about court staff, but the terms of the order do not appear to cover Engoron’s wife (or him). A target of the ex-president and his team spurring the original, underlying order has been a clerk to the judge, who like the judge, James, and others has faced accusations of partisan interests. Authorities across levels of government have consistently made connections between antagonistic rhetoric from Trump and real-world threats, and a dispute over another gag order in the January 6 criminal case against the former president remains pending with an appeals court. Engoron, meanwhile, has faced documented death threats while handling the fraud case against Trump.
