Former U.S. President Donald Trump is questioned by Judge Arthur F. Engoron before being fined $10,000 for violating a gag order for a second time, during the Trump Organization civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., October 25, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
A New York judge on Thursday temporarily suspended a gag order barring former President Donald Trump from commenting on court staff in his $250 million civil business fraud trial.
The judge from the First Department of New York’s Appellate Division granted the request by Trump’s defense attorneys for an interim stay of the gag orders, citing the “constitutional and statutory rights at issue” in a brief order.
The appeals court’s ruling pauses the gag orders that had been imposed on Trump and the attorneys defending him in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ high-stakes fraud case in Manhattan Supreme Court.
James accuses Trump, his two adult sons, the Trump Organization and top executives of falsely inflating the values of Trump’s assets to boost his net worth and reap financial benefits. She seeks $250 million in damages and wants to permanently bar Trump Sr., Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump from running a New York business.
Presiding Judge Arthur Engoron had barred Trump from making public statements about his court staff on the second day of the trial, after Trump repeatedly targeted the judge’s principal law clerk.
A month later on Nov. 3, Engoron extended that gag order to Trump’s attorneys, accusing them of making “repeated, inappropriate remarks” about the same law clerk.
Trump has violated the gag order twice, catching a total of $15,000 in fines.
The request to pause the gag orders came one day after Trump and his co-defendants asked for a mistrial in the case, arguing that Engoron and his clerk are biased and that their conduct has “tainted these proceedings.”
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