Former US President Donald Trump was publicly annoyed with a court employee. He now has to pay a hefty fine for this. It’s not the first time.
A New York judge has fined former US President Donald Trump $10,00 (around 9,450 euros) for his alleged criticism of a court employee. Judge Arthur Engoron, who is in charge of the fraud trial involving Trump’s assets, imposed the fine on Wednesday because Trump violated his order not to comment publicly on court personnel.
Trump is accused of having described Engoron himself and a court employee as “biased”. According to this, Trump is said to have said during a break that Engoron was a “very partisan judge with a person who is very partisan sitting next to him.”
Trump’s lawyers insist that Trump is referring to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been testifying against Trump since Tuesday, and not to the employee.
Donald Trump already has to pay $5,000
Engoron briefly called Trump to the stand after the incident, where the former president assured that his words referred to Cohen. The judge declared that Trump was “not credible” and imposed the fine. Trump left the courtroom shortly afterwards.
On Friday, Engoron had already imposed a $5,000 fine on Trump for defaming a court employee. At the beginning of October, the ex-president published a photo of one of the judge’s employees on his online platform Truth Social and described her as a “friend” of the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.
Engoron then banned all those involved in the process from publicly commenting on his employees: “Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable.”
The civil trial against Trump in New York began at the beginning of October. In it, the ex-president and entrepreneur is accused of having inflated the assets of his real estate empire over the years in order to get better conditions for loans and insurance. Judge Engoron ruled before the trial began that Trump overstated the assets and thereby committed “fraud.”
