Former President Donald Trump appealed a gag order on Monday that bars him from speaking about a judge's law clerk to the New York Court of Appeals, less than a week after a lower court reinstated the order.
Ever since the first weeks of Trump's civil business fraud trial in October, the former president has been under a limited gag order due to his social media posts referencing Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron's staff. A filing appeared on the New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department docket on Monday, showing Trump's intent to appeal the lower court's decision to the state's highest court.
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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.
Trump was ordered to delete the social media post and entered the 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 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.
A New York court security officer warned that the clerk received "hundreds" of threatening messages, saying that happens in bursts when Trump references her on social media or during a press conference, according to a sworn statement attached to the New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department docket.
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Law clerks typically go unnoticed in trials, but Trump and his attorneys have repeatedly taken issue with Greenfield. They have criticized her past donations to Democratic politicians as a potential violation of ethics rules because they surpassed the donation threshold and have argued she has been "given unprecedented and inappropriate latitude” in the case.
Trump's appeal comes as the former president on Thursday started making social media posts focused on Engoron's family, surfacing allegations from influencers like Laura Loomer, who claimed the judge's wife was posting anti-Trump images and rhetoric online. Engoron's wife, Dawn Marie Engoron, has denied the account belonged to her.