Judge slaps Trump with fine
Social media post about court staffer leads to $5,000 penalty
Former President Donald Trump was fined $5,000 on Friday after his disparaging social media post about a key court staffer in his New York civil fraud trial lingered on his campaign website for weeks after the judge ordered it deleted.
Also Friday, Trump's former valet and a co-defendant in the federal classified documents case against him told a judge that he wanted to keep his lawyer despite a potential conflict of interest.
In New York, Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding Trump in contempt for now, but reserved the right to do so — and possibly even put the 2024 Republican front-runner in jail — if he again violates a limited gag order barring case participants from personal attacks on court staff.
Engoron said in a written ruling that he is “way beyond the ‘warning' stage,” but that he was only fining Trump a nominal amount because this was a “first-time violation” and Trump's lawyers said the website's retention of the post had been inadvertent.
“Make no mistake: future violations, whether intentional or unintentional, will subject the violator to far more severe sanctions, which may include steeper financial penalties, holding Donald Trump in contempt of court and possibly imprisoning him,” Engoron wrote in a two-page order.
Messages seeking comment on the ruling were left with Trump's lawyers and a campaign spokesman.
Trump lawyer Christopher Kise earlier blamed the “very large machine” of Trump's White House campaign for allowing the post to remain on the website after Trump had deleted it from social media as ordered, calling it an unintentional oversight. It was removed from the website late Thursday after Engoron flagged it to Trump's lawyers.
Engoron, however, said the buck ultimately stops with Trump — even if it was someone on his campaign who failed to remove the offending post. He gave Trump 10 days to pay the fine.
“I want to be clear that Donald Trump is still responsible for the large machine even if it's a large machine,” Engoron said after discussing the matter with Trump's lawyers before testimony resumed Friday morning.
Engoron issued a limited gag order Oct. 3 barring all participants in the case from smearing his staff after Trump maligned principal law clerk Allison Greenfield in a post on his Truth Social platform. The judge ordered the former president to delete the post, which made an insinuation about the clerk's personal life, and warned of “serious sanctions” for violations.
“In the current overheated climate, incendiary untruths can, and in some cases already have, led to serious physical harm, and worse,” Engoron wrote Friday.
In Fort Pierce, Fla., prosecutors in the case against Trump valet Walt Nauta maintained that defense attorney Stanley Woodward has a conflict of interest because he previously represented an information technology specialist who's expected to be a key government witness at the trial and still represents another person who may be called to testify.
Nauta is charged along with the Republican former president with scheming to conceal classified government documents from federal investigators. The case is set for trial in Florida in May 2024.
Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith's team requested Friday's hearing to ensure that Nauta understood that there could be a possible conflict at trial. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon questioned Nauta about the risks of keeping his lawyer, advising him that it might harm his chances at trial and would deny him the ability to argue on appeal that his attorney had a conflict based on divided loyalties to a prior client.
“I still choose to go with Mr. Woodward,” Nauta said, waiving his right to conflict-free representation.
Prosecutors have identified the witness whom Woodward previously represented as an IT director at Trump's Palm Beach complex, Mar-a-Lago, who was asked to delete surveillance video there in an apparent effort to obstruct the federal investigation.
The witness retracted “prior false testimony” after switching lawyers last summer from Woodward to an attorney in the federal defender's office, prosecutors have said. Later provided what they said was incriminating information in the days before they secured a new indictment against Trump, Nauta and a third defendant.