The judge in the NY case is big mad:
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s bank fraud trial threatened to throw the former president in jail—and hit him with punishing fines—for “blatantly” violating a gag order by refusing to delete a website post attacking court staff.
Justice Arthur F. Engoron, striking a serious tone, began Friday at trial by laying out the high stakes and demanding that Trump’s lawyers explain themselves.
“In the current overheated climate, incendiary comments can and in some cases already has, led to serious physical harm and worse. I will now allow the defendants to explain why this blatant violation of the gag order would not result in serious sanctions, including financial sanctions and/or possibly imprisoning him,” Engoron said.
The case that Engoron is presiding over—Trump’s New York bank fraud trial—is a civil matter, meaning jail time wasn’t ever supposed to be in the cards, only stiff fines and a threat to ruin his real estate empire.
But now, Trump appears to be facing a very real threat of spending time in jail if his antics continue.
Defense lawyer Christopher Kise immediately apologized for Trump’s behavior, blaming the 2024 Republican presidential candidate’s bloated “campaign machinery” for simply forgetting to remove a webpage that mirrored the Truth Social post Trump had already deleted.
“There was no intention to evade or circumvent or ignore the order. I assure you that. I just know that this is a very large machine and this is one of the reasons, frankly, I don’t have social media,” Kise said, trying to deflect with some light humor.
“But that’s been taken down. And we don’t have any other… there were no subsequent postings,” Kise added.
The judge didn’t immediately accept that excuse.
“I will take that under advisement, but… Donald Trump is still responsible for the large machine,” Engoron reminded him.
Trump hasn’t said anything about this (yet) although he’s had a lot to say about the “riggers” who are going after him for his attempted coup and complaining about Biden allegedly causing WWIII. But then he’s very busy at the LIV golf tournament at Doral. He’s got a lot on his plate.