Judge fines former US president Donald Trump $8500 over social media post

Principal law clerk Allison Greenfield (left) and Judge Arthur Engoron in a New York courtroom. Photo / AP

The New York judge overseeing Donald Trump’s US$250 million fraud trial fined the former president US$5000 ($8500) for violating a gag order with false claims that a court clerk was Chuck Schumer’s “girlfriend”.

Judge Arthur Engoron had threatened to jail Trump before hitting him with the fine for breaching a partial gag order brought in earlier this month after Trump shared a picture of clerk Allison Greenfield posing with the Senate Majority leader, alongside allegations the pair were in a relationship.

In the Truth Social post, the Republican frontrunner, 77, also shared a link to Greenfield’s personal Instagram account.

While Trump deleted the post from his social media page, it remained on his campaign website for a further 17 days. It was removed on Thursday night after the court emailed him.

“Incendiary untruths can and have led to serious physical harm. I will now allow the defendant to explain why this should not end up with serious sanctions or I could possibly imprison him,” Judge Engoron told the Manhattan court today.

He said Trump had posted “an untrue and disparaging post about my clerk”.

He said: “I ordered him to remove the post immediately and he said he did take it down.”

Judge Engoron added: “Last night I learned the offending post was never removed from a website. This is a blatant violation of the gag order. I made it clear [that] failure to comply will result in serious sanctions.”

Chris Kise, Trump’s defence lawyer, said the failure to remove the comment was “truly inadvertent” and said 3700 people had viewed the post on the campaign website.

Kise said the Truth Social post was “taken down and Trump never made any more comments about court staff, but it appears no one took it down on the campaign website. It is unfortunate and I apologise on behalf of my client.”

The judge said he would take Trump’s lawyer’s remarks “under advisement” but said Trump is responsible for the “large machine”. Trump also faces a partial gag order in his criminal DC election interference case.

The former president was dealt another blow today after another of his 18 co-defendants pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case.

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro took a last-minute plea deal just as the jury selection process had begun, the day after Sidney Powell, former campaign manager, also pleaded guilty in the criminal case.

Chesebro pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. He agreed to testify against Trump and the other 15 co-defendants in the sprawling racketeering case. Prosecutors recommended he receive five years of probation, US$5000 restitution and 100 hours of community service.

Powell also took a plea deal in which she received probation in exchange for agreeing to testify in the case.

Chesebro and Powell were scheduled to go to trial next week after they demanded speedy trials.

The plea deals are major victories for Fani Willis, Fulton County district attorney, allowing her to avoid a lengthy trial of just two defendants – which would have given those remaining a peek at her trial strategy – and to whittle down an unwieldy pool of defendants.

Last month, bail bondsman Scott Hall took a deal in which he pleaded guilty to tampering with voting machine equipment and received probation in exchange for agreeing to testify at the trial of other co-defendants.