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Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise argues with Judge Arthur Engoron during the Trump Organization civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., November 3, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
A New York judge ruled Friday that a limited gag order on Donald Trump should also apply to his attorneys, citing their remarks about his staff and the deluge of threats and harassment that have “inundated” his chambers since the former president’s fraud trial began.
“The threat of, and actual, violence resulting from heated political rhetoric is well-documented,” Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron wrote in a fiery court order Friday afternoon.
“The First Amendment right of defendants and their attorneys to comment on my staff is far and away outweighed by the need to protect them from threats and physical harm,” Engoron wrote.
The gag order bars attorneys in the case from making any public statements, in or out of court, that reference any and all confidential communications between the judge and his staff.
Engoron had previously imposed a similar gag order on Trump, after the former president sent a social media post attacking the judge’s clerk.
Trump has violated that gag order twice since the trial began last month.
Engoron’s newest order singled out two of Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Kise and Alina Habba, for making “repeated, inappropriate remarks” about his principal law clerk.
They have been “falsely accusing her of bias against them and of improperly influencing the ongoing bench trial,” Engoron wrote.
The attorneys have repeatedly complained about the judge’s communications with his clerk during the trial, including her passing of notes to him during the proceedings. But the judge rejected their suggestion that doing so constitutes an appearance of impropriety.
“These arguments have no basis,” he wrote.
While the attorneys can keep referencing his clerk to ask about scheduling and other trial management issues, they can no longer make statements about internal messages made between the judge and his staff.
“Since the commencement of this bench trial, my chambers have been inundated with hundreds of harassing and [threatening] phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters, and packages,” Engoron wrote.
Violating the gag order “shall result in serious sanctions,” he added.
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