Judge Arthur Engoron issued a gag order on Friday prohibiting former President Donald Trump's legal team from commenting on the judge's "confidential communications" with his staff.
The gag order goes beyond Trump and also prohibits his lawyers from "making any public statements, in or out of court, that refer to any confidential communications, in any form, between my staff and me."
Judge Engoron, who is in charge of Trump's alleged $250 million fraud trial in New York, has already fined Trump $15,000 for attacking his secretary on social media. He has threatened to imprison the former president if the attacks continued. Now he has taken things one step further and is trying to silence his entire legal team. He did so after Donald Trump's lawyer, Christopher Kise, threatened to seek a mistrial because, he alleged, Engoron's chief secretary had engaged in political activities with Democratic officials, which was revealed by Breitbart.
According to this report, Allison Greenfield, Engoron's principal law clerk, had allegedly violated court rules preventing court officials from making excessive political donations. The Breitbart News report revealed that Engoron had learned of Greenfield's alleged violations through an emailed complaint that was also sent to the State Bar Association on the same day the judge originally imposed a gag order against Trump.
Engoron's response to these accusations was to impose "serious sanctions" against Trump's legal team if they violate the order. The judge, who is overseeing the civil suit that New York Attorney General Letitia James filed against Trump and his adult children, specifically singled out Trump's attorneys Christopher Kise, Clifford Robert and Alina Habba, claiming that they "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.” According to Engoron, he and his work team have received threats because of this.
