On Friday, Judge Engoron, who is overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, fined the former president $5,000 and threatened to imprison him for defying a partial gag order. He was ordered to remove a post insulting the judge’s law clerk on social media.
Judge Arthur Engoron was livid even though Trump’s attorney said it was inadvertent.
Engoron said Trump had posted on his social media account “an untrue and disparaging post about my clerk” and that he “ordered him to remove the post immediately, and he said he did take it down.”
He continued, “Despite this order, last night, I learned the offending post was never removed from a website. This is a blatant violation of the gag order. I made it clear [that] failure to comply will result in serious sanctions.”
“Incendiary untruths can and have led to serious physical harm. I will now allow the defendant to explain why this should not end up with serious sanctions, or I could possibly imprison him,” Engoron said.
If Trump violates his order, Engoron said he might imprison him for a mean post.
“Make no mistake: future violations, whether intentional or unintentional, will subject the violator to far more severe sanctions, which may include, but are not limited to, steeper financial penalties, holding Donald Trump in contempt of court, and possibly imprisoning him,” Engoron wrote.
Trump took it down from Truth Social, but the campaign failed to take it down.
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