A New York appeals court on Thursday reinstated the gag orders against President Trump and his defense attorneys that had been imposed by the judge presiding over the Trump Organization’s civil fraud trial in Manhattan. Mr. Trump and his legal team may no longer criticize Judge Arthur Engoron’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, without facing financial sanctions or worse. 

“I want to make sure all counsel are aware,” Judge Engoron informed the courtroom, “that this morning the Appellate Division, First Department issued a decision vacating the stay on the two gag orders that I imposed earlier on this case.” 

Judge Engoron said he intends to “enforce the gag orders rigorously and vigorously.” 

Defense attorney Chris Kise responded, “We’re aware. It’s a tragic day for the rule of law.” 

“It is what it is,” the judge replied and continued to proceed with the trial. The judge already fined Mr. Trump twice for violating the gag orders with a total sum of $15,000. 

Mr. Trump, his two eldest sons and other executives of the Trump Organization stand accused of business fraud in State Supreme Court Manhattan. New York’s Democratic attorney general, Letitia James, alleges that the Trumps falsified financial statements in a decades-long scheme to gain favorable loan terms and insurance policies.

Judge Engoron already ruled before the trial that the Trumps committed fraud, and suspended their license to do business in New York. That suspension has been stayed pending an appeal. The trial underway will determine damages. Ms. James’ lawsuit seeks over $250 million dollars. 

In the first week of the trial, Judge Engoron issued a limited gag order on Mr. Trump after the 45th president posted a photograph of Ms. Greenfield, together with the Senate majority leader, Charles “Chuck” Schumer, on his Truth Social account. The photograph was captioned “Schumer’s girlfriend.” 

The unsubstantiated post was removed but when it resurfaced on Mr. Trump’s campaign website, the judge imposed the first fine. 

The second fine followed a few days later, after Mr.Trump told court reporters that the “person” sitting next to the judge is “perhaps even more partisan than he is.” 

Mr. Trump was called to the witness stand and testified that he had referred to Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and nemesis, whom the prosecution had called as a witness that day. The judge, who sits next to Ms. Greenfield on the bench, found Mr. Trump to be “not credible.” 

The feud didn’t end there. The judge extended the gag orders to include Mr. Trump’s defense attorneys after they accused his law clerk of being “biased” and of engaging in improper courtroom behavior. Ms. Greenfield, they complained, was rolling her eyes, whispering into the judge’s ears, and passing notes to him. “There is a nod of the head and then decisions are made,” one the defense attorneys, Alina Habba, said in the courtroom. 

It “exerts an improper degree of influence over Justice Engoron’s rulings in a case subject to unrelenting news coverage,” the attorneys wrote in their court filing on Monday. 

But Judge Engoron insisted that the gag orders were issued to ensure a safe and uninterrupted proceeding of the trial. 

“I don’t want anyone getting killed,” he told the attorneys. 

The “threat of, and actual, violence resulting from heated political rhetoric is well documented,” the judge later wrote in his decision.

He clarified the restriction applied to any public comments Mr. Trump or his lawyers make about his staff, including any remarks about the communications between him and his staff, who were hired to aid in carrying out his “adjudicative responsibilities.”     

The judge mentioned that the defense had been given their “ample opportunity” to make a lengthy record, and could refer back to it in their appeal.  

And the defense, as it had announced, did appeal. They asked the Appellate Division to intervene, arguing that the gag orders were unconstitutional, because they violated the First Amendment. 

On November 16, a judge at the Appellate Division First Department, David Friedman, put the gag orders on temporary pause, writing that “considering the constitutional and statutory rights at issue an interim stay is granted.” 

Mr. Trump immediately resumed posting about the law clerk on Truth Social, calling her “politically biased,” “out of control,” a “Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator,” who sits next to the judge and tells him “what to do.”

Last week, the deputy counsel in the Office of Court Administration, Lisa M. Evans, sent an affidavit to the appeals court, a sworn statement, from a New York court officer assigned to the Judicial Threats Assessment Unit, Charles Hollon. 

According to Mr. Hollon’s affidavit, the number of threats increased after the gag orders were temporarily lifted. Ms. Greenfield received an abundance of hostile calls per day to her personal cell phone, and threatening messages on social media platforms and personal email accounts. About half of these threats were antisemitic. Transcriptions of the harassment filled 275 single-spaced pages, Ms. Evans stated in her court filing.

“Concerns about dangerous conduct by anonymous third parties do not justify Justice Engoron’s sweeping restrictions,” Mr. Trump’s attorneys argued. Neither their client nor they had intentionally initiated “the contemptible dross reflected in those messages,” nor ever made “a statement referencing the Principal Law Clerk’s religion, appearance, or private activities.” 

They argued that Ms. Greenfield was indeed biased, because she made financial donations to Democratic organizations, and even campaigned to become a judge herself. She suspended her campaign, but based on her social media posts and attendance at several Democratic events, the attorneys assume she may try to campaign again. This, the defense claimed, raises the concern that Ms. Greenfield is partisan in her judgment against the current front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. 

Their arguments failed to convince the Appellate Division. On Thursday, a panel of four judges reinstated the gag orders. The defense’s 1,902 page long request was denied with one sentence:    

“It is ordered that the motion is denied,” the decision reads. ”The interim relief granted by order of a Justice of this Court, dated November 16, 2023, is hereby vacated.” 

Mr. Trump can now ask New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to review the gag orders. 

A clerk at the Court of Appeals, Margaret Wood, told the Sun that “in the normal course,” a decision could take a few months. “There is a potential that if something were filed here, it could be expedited but I don’t know if it would be.”

“They can seek review based on a constitutional issue,” Ms. Wood told the Sun, “it’s just a question whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the matter, and the jurisdiction of this court is rather limited.” 

According to Ms. Woods, the Court of Appeals has granted permission to review 27 out of 765 petitions of civil court cases in 2022. That means 3.52 percent of cases were accepted for review.  

An appellate court attorney, who spoke to the Sun Thursday afternoon, said a leave would likely be denied, because the Court of Appeals usually does not “reconsider fact issues.” 

It seems that the Appellate Division found this issue to be “an appeal of the facts, not of any wrongly decided legal principle based on those facts.” In other words, the decision to restrict Mr. Trump’s speech was based on the fact that his rhetoric on social media causes safety concerns for the court staff. The affidavit provided by the attorney for Judge Engoron proved those facts to be true. Threats to the law clerk increased after the gag order was paused. 

If New York’s highest court turns Mr. Trump’s defense team away, they could still approach the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justice assigned to the 2nd Circuit (including all of New York State) is Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee widely considered the high court’s most liberal justice. She would receive their court request. 

The Guardian reports that “barely an hour” after the gag orders were reinstated, Mr. Trump turned his attention to the wife of the judge, Dawn Engoron, who is not covered by the gag order. On his Truth Social account, he called her a “Trump hating wife,” and posted screenshots of anti-Trump messages on X, formerly known as Twitter, allegedly written by Ms. Engoron.   

Ms. Engoron, who had previously been accused by pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer of operating an anti-Trump Twitter account, told Newsweek early last month that “I do not have a Twitter account. This is not me. I have not posted any anti-Trump messages.”     

Meanwhile, the trial continues. On Thursday, Judge Engoron set January 11 as the date for closing arguments. Both the defense and the state have to file their briefs by noon on January 5. 

Judge Engoron announced that he hopes to present his final decision in the case “a few weeks after” the closing arguments, “but no guarantees.”

On December 6, Mr. Trump’s son, Eric, is scheduled to return to the witness stand, and on December 11, Mr. Trump himself is expected to testify as the defense’s last witness.