Donald Trump was abruptly called to the witness stand and then fined $10,000 on Wednesday after the judge in his civil fraud trial said the former president had violated a gag order. It was the second time in less than a week that Trump was penalized for his out-of-court comments.
Five days earlier, Trump had been fined $5,000 after Engoron learned that the offending social media post from early October had lingered on Trump’s campaign website for weeks after being taken down — on the judge’s orders — from Trump’s Truth Social media platform. The episodes raise questions about whether Trump can abide by court directives that are aimed at reining in his rhetoric while respecting his free speech rights as he campaigns to return to the White House.
Since then, Trump has disparaged Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith in an online post as “deranged” and said those who would make cooperation deals with prosecutors are “weaklings and cowards.” She alleges that Trump habitually exaggerated the value of his real estate holdings on financial documents that helped him get loans and insurance and make deals.Cohen testified Tuesday that he and other executives at Trump’s company worked to inflate the estimated values of their employer’s holdings so his financial statements would match a net worth that Trump had set “arbitrarily.”