2023-10-21 12:00:00
Judge Arthur Engoron, who is in charge of the Trump assets fraud trial, imposed the sentence on Friday for violating his order not to comment publicly on court personnel. He also threatened a prison sentence for future violations.
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.”
Although the post was quickly deleted from Truth Social, it remained on Trump’s campaign website. The judge said he “learned last night that the offending post was never removed from the DonaldJTrump.com website and had, in fact, been on that site for the past 17 days.” The post was ultimately only deleted following an email from the court. Attorney Chris Kise argued in a hearing that it was an oversight. “I apologize on behalf of my client.”
The civil trial once morest Trump in New York began at the beginning of October. New York Attorney General Letitia James accuses the ex-president and entrepreneur 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.”
The civil case is therefore particularly concerned with the question of how high the punishment will be once morest Trump and his sons Donald Trump Junior and Eric Trump. James has demanded, among other things, a fine of $250 million. Trump is not threatened with a prison sentence. He has denied all allegations and described them as politically motivated. The Republican, who plans to run once more in the 2024 presidential election, has also repeatedly attacked Judge Engoron and Attorney General James.
In addition to the civil case over fraud allegations in New York, Trump has been indicted in four criminal cases. Two charges concern the right-wing populist’s attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and thus stay in power.
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