Former President Donald Trump sits between his lawyers Christopher Kise, left, and Alina Habba during his civil fraud trial at the State Supreme Court building in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP). Inset: Judge Arthur Engoron presides over former President Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP)
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud case has ordered the lawyers in the case to stop talking about his top law clerk or risk facing “serious sanctions.”
New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron issued a sharply worded order Friday after a contentious exchange with lawyers for Trump over the attorneys’ statements about Allison Greenfield, who has previously been the subject of disparaging social media posts by the former president himself — posts that led to a gag order and $15,000 in sanctions.
“I imposed the gag order only upon the parties, operating under the assumption that such a gag order would be unnecessary upon the parties, who are officers of the Court,” Engoron wrote in the three-page order.
Apparently, he was wrong.
Trump lawyers Christopher Kise, Clifford Robert, and Alina Habba “have made, on the record, repeated, inappropriate remarks about my Principal Law Clerk, falsely accusing her of bias against them and of improperly influencing the ongoing bench trial,” the judge wrote. “Defendants’ attorneys have made long speeches alleging that it is improper for a judge to consult with a law clerk during ongoing proceedings, and that the passing of notes from a judge to a law clerk, or vice-versa, constitutes an improper ‘appearance of impropriety’ in this case. These arguments have no basis.”
Citing New York state law and ethics opinions, Engoron said that the very purpose of his staff is to perform their jobs “in the manner in which I request,” including “providing legal authority and opinions, as well as responding to questions I pose to them.”
Trump’s lawyers’ demands for the content of those communications are a non-starter, according to the judge.
“Plainly, defendants are not entitled to the confidential communications amongst me and my court staff, who are hired specifically to aid me in carrying out my adjudicative responsibilities,” Engoron said in the order. “Nor are they entitled to continue referencing my staff in the record.”
Apparently anticipating an appeal, Engoron noted that he had given Trump’s lawyers “ample opportunity to make their record, and they have at length.”
“Indeed, I will assist them by repeating here that I will continue to consult with my staff, as is my unfettered right, throughout the remainder of the trial,” he wrote.
The judge said that Trump’s lawyers could continue to communicate with his staff “as appropriate” for scheduling and trial management issues.
“What they may not do is to make any further statements about internal and confidential communications (be it conversations, note passing, or anything similar) between me and my staff,” he wrote in the order (emphasis in original).
Team Trump’s First Amendment argument against the gag order is “wholly unpersuasive,” Engoron wrote. He then addressed the potential consequences of ongoing disparaging remarks and insinuations about his court staff.
“As I have made clear, as the Judge in this case and the trier of fact, the gag order does not apply to me,” the order says. “However, I will not tolerate, under any circumstances, remarks about my court staff. The threat of, and actual, violence resulting from heated political rhetoric is well-documented. 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. 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.”
Under Engoron’s order, “all counsel are prohibited from making any public statements, in or out of court, that refer to any confidential communications, in any form, between my staff and me.”
“Failure to abide by this directive shall result in serious sanctions,” the judge added.
The order came after a contentious exchange with attorney Kise, who apparently cited a highly partisan source as the basis for his repeated criticisms of Greenfield, who came under fire from Trump and his allies after a picture was unearthed showing her standing with Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Kise had repeated an argument he had made Thursday in which he complained that “things are frequently, if not inordinately, against us on every major issue,” the Daily Beast reported. He brought up an article published Thursday calling for Greenfield to be disbarred over her political donations to Democrats, the Daily Beast story said.
Kise reportedly told Engoron that the allegations in the article were “delivered to the court” on Friday morning. He then indicated he may move for a mistrial, the Daily Beast reported, citing previously released “information” about “extrajudicial conduct.”
Engoron, correcting Kise and telling him “it’s not information, it’s an allegation,” then reportedly told the lawyer he didn’t know what article Kise was referencing and hadn’t seen it.
“I think it may be Breitbart,” Kise replied, according to the Daily Beast, which reported that laughter from the gallery ensued. The Daily Beast also noted that Breitbart had indeed published an article about a complaint about Greenfield filed by a Wisconsin man not linked to the Trump trial.
A clearly angry Engoron called Kise’s claim that he had received the article “absolutely untrue” and, of the Breitbart article, said that “it’s a shame that things have descended to this level,” the Daily Beast reported.
Engoron then moved forward with the trial, calling Trump’s son Eric Trump to the stand, as planned.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a massive $250 million lawsuit against Trump in September 2022, alleging that he and other officials at the Trump Organization lied on financial statements, at times overstating his net worth by billions of dollars in order to rip off banks and insurance companies.
Read Engoron’s order below.
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