OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Outside the courtroom where his fraud trial is being held, former president Donald Trump ranted about Judge Arthur Engoron, ignoring questions about his “dictator” remarks and last night’s debate.
In the fraud case that New York Attorney General Letitia James brought, Judge Engoron is presiding over Trump’s trial. Trump has made multiple appearances during the trial, and he has taken numerous opportunities to rant to reporters between proceedings.
Once again, Trump was in court on Thursday morning, and reporters pounded him with questions regarding the candidates “taking shots” at him during the debate on Wednesday night and his recent pledge to be a “dictator” on “day one”—but Trump had different plans.
A reporter asked Trump, “What’s your reaction to the governors taking shots at you yesterday? The president did well yesterday. What is your reaction to the governor?”
“Thank you very much. Everybody is. This is a witch hunt, the likes of which probably nobody has ever seen. And you have people being murdered outside all over the streets. They’re being murdered. This violent crime, and this attorney general is crazy. She’s a lunatic. The attorney general. Sincere because she knows that she has a judge in the matter. With all the evidence that you have, that judge is going to rule in their favor. He ruled against me before the case even started. The case had started. He knew nothing, and he ruled against me,” Trump declared.
“The other thing is, this is an oral argument. I’m sure it was what was good for her case. And the value of $18 million when, in fact, it’s worth anywhere from 50 to 100 times that amount. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. But just remember what I said at the beginning. We won at the appellate division, and this judge refuses to honor that victory or that decision for that demand. Thank you very much,” Trump added.
WATCH:
Every day Trump has to spend in a court to fight these BS charges is a day he can’t campaign or spend time speaking to the issues in America.
This election is being rigged by the courts. pic.twitter.com/iScfYF4QzW
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) December 7, 2023
Less than a week after a lower court upheld the gag order the state judge overseeing his civil fraud case had placed on him, Trump appealed it to the New York Court of Appeals.
The Washington Examiner reported that Trump has been under a gag order since the first weeks of his trial, which began in October, due to posts on social media referencing Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron and his staff. The Examiner noted that Trump’s filing appeared on the New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department docket on Monday, which revealed the former president’s intent to appeal the lower court’s ruling to the state’s highest court.
“Engoron contends his principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, has sustained harassing and antisemitic messages ever since Trump posted a picture of her with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and referred to her as his ‘girlfriend’ on Oct. 4, the second day of the civil fraud trial against the Trump Organization,” the outlet explained.
“Trump was ordered to delete the social media post and entered a gag order against him that day. Engoron has ruled Trump has violated the order twice and fined him a total of $15,000 so far, a fee Trump has already paid out,” the report continued. “The order has since been expanded to block Trump’s attorneys from commenting about his communications with the clerk, who sits next to Engoron during the trial.”
Meanwhile, in addition to the federal and state charges facing Trump, the former president is also dealing with a legal onslaught to keep him off the 2024 ballot in several states.
A lengthy list of parties, including over a dozen attorneys general from states controlled by Republicans, have filed briefs in a legal challenge to the constitutional eligibility of former president Donald Trump to appear on Colorado’s 2024 ballot.
Following last month’s ruling against six voters arguing that Trump’s role in inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. was unfounded, the Colorado Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case this week. An insurrection clause from the Civil War bars him from the Capitol, Colorado News reported.
In her ruling from November 17, Judge Sarah B. Wallace stated that the 14th Amendment’s Section 3 does not apply to the presidency, even though she found that Trump “engaged in insurrection” according to that provision. This provision forbids someone from holding office again if they do so after taking an oath to support the Constitution.
Both parties quickly appealed the case to the state’s highest court. According to the plaintiffs, who have the support of the Washington, DC-based nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, Wallace’s conclusion that the president is not included in the list of “officer(s) of the United States” in Section 3 is “nonsensical.”
Lawyers for Trump have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to examine several aspects of the case, including the conclusion that the former president was involved in an alleged insurrection.
