President Donald Trump’s lawyers escalated their vocal criticism of the radical judge and “partisan” principal law clerk who are presiding over his civil “fraud” trial in New York.
This comes only a few days after claims that both of these individuals claimed to have been subjected to “hundreds” of intimidating threats, as The Messenger reported.
Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk, Allison Greenfield, claim they receive threats whenever Trump criticizes them on social media.
However, there is no evidence that Trump’s posts are linked to the alleged threats.
Equally, there’s no evidence to prove that the alleged threats are being made by supporters of Trump, and not leftists who wish to frame the 45th president as an instigator of violence.
In a pair of rulings that were temporarily halted by an intermediate appellate court, Justice Arthur Engoron of the Manhattan Supreme Court previously prevented President Trump and his counsel from making statements about his personnel.
Clifford Robert, an attorney representing Trump, submitted a request to the Appellate Division of the First Department of New York on Monday, requesting that the gag orders be permanently overturned.
These restrictions prohibit attacks on Engoron’s staff, but not on the judge himself.
Engoron provided a justification for the orders by stating that “hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters, and packages” have poured into chambers since the beginning of the trial.
He stated that this was done in order to protect the safety of his staff.
Legal counsel for Trump played down the chance that “an unknown third party may react in a hostile or offensive manner” to the 45th president’s attacks on the clerk.
“This should be rejected,” Robert wrote.
There is “no indication” that Trump has “any connection or exercise any control” over individuals making the threats, he noted.
A court security officer pointed to an alleged increase in threats against the clerk after Trump’s comments on social media.
However, the Trump family’s attorney disavowed any connection between the events.
“It bears repeating that President Trump and his counsel have never called for violence against the Principal Law Clerk nor encouraged, or even condoned, the behavior [court security Capt. Charles] Hollon describes,” wrote Robert.
Robert was questioning a defense witness when the almost 2,000-page filing was filed in the appellate court.
After the 2024 presidential election frontrunner spoke out about his frustration with the court cases on social media, judges and prosecutors who are connected to Trump’s criminal cases have claimed that they are often subjected to threats and harassment.
At the same time U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s federal election obstruction case in Washington D.C., claimed to have received another death threat that led to an indictment.
Manhattan’s career Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who returned the first politically motivated indictment against Trump in the “hush money” case, has also claimed to have received a death threat.
The gag order was issued by Engoron on the second day of the trial.
It came in response to Trump writing on social media that the clerk was the “girlfriend” of the Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
The initial restraining order was issued after Trump complied with the judge’s order that he remove the “untrue” and “disparaging” post.
Since then, Trump has been convicted of twice violating the gag order, accumulating a total of $15,000 in penalties that are currently being appealed.
“Each time Justice Engoron has sua sponte punished President Trump, he warns that the punishments will increase in severity until, apparently, Justice Engoron imprisons President Trump without abiding by any procedural protection to which President Trump is entitled by law,” Robert’s filing states.
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