Judge Gags Trump After Ex-President Attacks His Law Clerk

The New York judge presiding over Donald Trump's civil fraud trial on Tuesday issued a gag order after the former president attacked his clerk by name and shared her image on social media.

“Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate, and I won't tolerate it [in my courtroom],” said New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.

He added later to "consider this a gag order for all parties from posting about any members of my staff."

The judge rebuked the "untrue and personally identifying posts" about a staff member.

“Schumer’s girlfriend, Alison R. Greenfield, is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately!!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, along with a picture of the clerk and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The post appeared to show a photograph of Greenfield standing next to Schumer, without any more context. Fact-checkers note that false rumors about Schumer and infidelity appear to trace their origins to a now-shuttered satirical website.

Engoron didn't mention the former president by name, but the remarks clearly referred to him. The judge said he ordered the post deleted, and it was. Trump deleted his Truth Social post.

Asked whether Justice Engoron's clerk would require additional security in the wake of Trump's post attacking her, a court spokesperson replied: "We do not discuss any details that would relate to issues of security."

While the trial took an early afternoon break, Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James moved in and out of court multiple times for private conferences with the judge. The first of these conferences had no stenographer memorializing the conversations. The former president, his son Eric Trump, and his lawyers Christopher Kise and Alina Habba were seen entering and exiting the courthouse repeatedly over the recess.

Asked by a reporter if he would return, Trump responded: “We’re coming back.”

Trump has a history of attacking prosecutors and judges on social media, but now he is vilifying the assistant to a judge who threatens his New York business empire. Greenfield is an active participant in Engoron’s hearings, and the judge routinely hands over questioning of the lawyers to her. 

After the former president attacked New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the DA was mailed a death threat in an envelope with white powder. 

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the jurist presiding over Trump’s election-obstruction case in Washington, D.C., also received a death threat after the former president attacked her. 

“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump wrote in an all-caps post on Truth Social shortly after he was indicted on four federal felony counts in Washington, D.C. over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

In a brief on Friday in the D.C. case, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office cited the incendiary language in Trump’s social media posts as reason to impose a “narrow” gag order governing the former president’s communications about the case. 

Specifically, Smith's team showed its been monitoring Trump's social media, press interviews and campaign appearances by citing his latest remarks about Chutkan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

The special counsel drew Chutkan's attention in particular to a post  written last Friday about Milley's call to China after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol being “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

"No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed; this defendant should not be, either," Smith's prosecutors wrote in their 22-page reply brief aimed at stopping Trump from attacking government witnesses in his election-obstruction case.

In the D.C. case, Chutkan is expected to rule on Smith's motion after an Oct. 16 hearing. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the federal case in Washington D.C., which is scheduled to go to trial beginning March 4.