NEW YORK (Reuters) -The judge overseeing the New York civil fraud case against former U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday issued a gag order barring all lawyers from making public statements about the judge’s communications with his staff.
Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York state court in Manhattan issued the order after defense lawyers made repeated objections about the working relationship between him and his principal law clerk, including suggestions that she was biased. Trump himself has also accused her of bias.
In his order, Engoron said he has an “unfettered right” to consult with his staff members throughout the trial, and that a gag order was intended to protect their safety.
“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,” Engoron wrote, referring to the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections.
Failure to honor the gag order, the judge said, “shall result in serious sanctions.”
Engoron first imposed a gag order on Oct. 3 after Trump shared on social media a photo of the clerk posing with U.S. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and falsely called her Schumer’s “girlfriend.”
The judge has fined Trump $15,000 for twice violating that gag order. Engoron on Friday expanded the gag order to cover lawyers as well after a member of Trump’s legal team, Christopher Kise, objected to the clerk passing notes to the judge during the trial.
The order was issued after Trump’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump testified this week. Their father is expected to testify on Monday.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham and Caitlin Webber)
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