During a break in his fraud trial on Wednesday, Donald Trump told reporters: “This judge is very biased and he has a very biased man sitting next to him. Perhaps even much more biased than himself.”
Judge Arthur Engoron concluded that the person in question was a court clerk, Reuters reports. He called it a “flagrant” violation of the gag order that prohibits Trump from making disparaging comments about judicial officials. He imposed a fine of 10 thousand dollars on the former president.
Trump’s defense argued that Trump’s comment was referring to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who is testifying against the politician. But Engoron was not convinced by this argument and left the fine in force. “Don’t do this again in the future or it will get worse,” the judge emphasized.
This is the second time Trump has violated his confidentiality agreement. Last week, Engoron fined the politician $5,000 for failing to remove a derogatory post about a court employee from his campaign website.
