The judge in Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial has barred lawyers in the case from commenting on “confidential communications” between him and his staff, after the former US president’s attorneys renewed claims that a clerk was poisoning the proceedings.
Threatening “serious sanctions” for any violations, Judge Arthur Engoron expanded on a gagging order that prohibited parties in the trial from speaking publicly about court staff.
The earlier order did not mention the parties’ lawyers, but Judge Engoron had suggested on Thursday that he might expand it.
The matter seized attention on a day when Eric Trump, one of the former president’s sons and a senior executive in the family business, wrapped up his evidence, saying he relied completely on accountants and lawyers to assure the accuracy of financial documents that are key to New York attorney general Letitia James’s lawsuit.
The state lawsuit accuses Trump and his company of deceiving banks and insurers by exaggerating his wealth on his annual financial statements. The ex-president and other defendants, including sons Eric and Donald Jr, deny the allegations.
The former US president is due to give evidence on Monday in the case, which threatens the property empire that launched him into the public eye and eventually politics.
Like the earlier gagging order, the new one was sparked by criticism of the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield. She has unexpectedly become a lightning rod during the trial.
“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,” wrote Judge Engoron.
He said his office has received “hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voice mails, emails, letters and packages” during the trial.
The written order echoed the judge’s comments in court, when Trump lawyer Christopher Kise recapped complaints that the defence team has raised for more than a week about the clerk’s notes to the judge during evidence.
The contents of the notes have not been disclosed, but Trump’s lawyers say the messages are more frequent when the defence is questioning witnesses, and the attorneys suggest the notes are tilting the process against the ex-president and current Republican frontrunner’s case.
“I certainly am often thinking I’m arguing against two adversaries, not one,” Mr Kise told the judge on Friday. “I’m debating with the government, and then I’m debating with someone who is providing input to you on a regular, immediate basis.”
Ms Greenfield ran for a judgeship as a Democrat, and Judge Engoron is also a Democrat.
The judge says the accusations of bias and improper influence are false, and he insists he has an “absolute, unfettered right” to input from his clerk.
He told the defence on Thursday that he might expand the gagging order to include lawyers if any of them referred to a member of his staff again. He started Friday’s court session by saying he hoped he had made himself clear.
Mr Kise then argued again that if the judge was “receiving input from someone with potentially demonstrable bias” or at least questions about it, defence lawyers needed to “make that record”.
A lawyer for Ms James’s office, Kevin Wallace, called the dispute over the clerk a “sideshow”, suggesting the defence was “trying to blow up the trial” and seeking “to interrupt our ability to put in evidence”.
Judge Engoron’s action on Friday came a month after the initial gagging order, spurred by Trump’s disparaging comments about Ms Greenfield in a social media post. Fines followed, after the judge said Trump violated the order.
The former US president is due to give evidence on Monday in the case.
