Donald Trump was fined $5,000 on Friday for an offensive publication against the New York court clerk. There is a civil case against him for financial fraud in the management of his real estate empire.
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During this trial, Judge Arthur Engoron had banned all parties from attacking his team from the second day of the trial on October 3, after a publication was made on the Republican billionaire’s account on his Truth Social that was considered “degrading” to the court clerk network .
The post had been removed, but “despite this clear order, I learned last night that the offending message had never been removed from the DonaldJTrump.com website and had remained on that site for the past 17 days” before it was “belatedly withdrawn.” last night (Thursday), but only in response to an email from this court,” the judge stated on Friday, according to statements relayed by American media and confirmed to AFP by a court spokesman.
In an order issued on Friday afternoon, the judge emphasized that he had a dig at Donald Trump on October 3 and that he had assured him that he would not do it again.
The judge believes that Donald Trump was “amply warned of the consequences of violating” the ban, but since this was the first time and the former president’s lawyers asserted that the publication had “inadvertently” remained on the website, He imposed a “symbolic fine” of $5,000.
“Future violations, whether intentional or not, will punish the offender with much harsher penalties,” the judge warns, pointing to “heavier” fines or even his being charged with contempt of court and “possibly his being placed in custody.”
“In today’s already overheated climate, inflammatory falsehoods can, and in some cases have, resulted in serious physical harm or worse,” the judge added in his ruling.
Because of his often vicious statements, Donald Trump has also been barred from public comments aimed at prosecutors, court staff and witnesses at the upcoming criminal trial in Washington over his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
A measure taken by the judge to limit the risk of threats, intimidation and harassment of targets in the age of social networks.
Since the beginning of his civil trial, Donald Trump has continued to attack the New York State Attorney General behind the indictment, Letitia James, an elected Democrat and African American, whom he describes as “corrupt.” , “racist” and “horrible”.
Letitia James accuses the Republican and two of his children, Eric and Donald Jr., of overvaluing his New York golf courses, residences and skyscrapers by billions of dollars in the 2010s in order to get cheaper loans from banks, something Donald Trump denies. In particular, it is demanding a fine of $250 million.