Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen accused the former president of violating his gag order for the second time and then lying about it under oath.
Cohen testified against Trump for a second day on Wednesday during the New York fraud trial where Trump, his two eldest sons, and executives within The Trump Organization stand accused of falsely inflating Trump’s net worth to get more favorable loan terms. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.
On October 3, Trump was placed under a limited gag order, barring him from disparaging court staff after the former president shared a post from X, formerly Twitter, on Truth Social asking, “Why is Judge Engoron’s Principal Law Clerk, Allison R. Greenfield, palling around with Chuck Schumer?” Included in the post was a link to Greenfield’s personal Instagram page.
During a break from court proceedings on Wednesday, Trump told reporters in the hallway, “This judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”
Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images
Cohen accused Trump of perjury in a post on X on Wednesday evening. He shared a photo of Trump with messy hair and wrote: “Disheveled @realDonaldTrump fined $10,000 for violating gag order. While on the stand, he ‘under oath’, asked who he was talking about in his speech. He LIED and said me. No one bought his bulls***. That’s called perjury!!! #TeamCohen”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s office via online form for comment on Thursday.
In New York, perjury can carry up to seven years in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000, depending on whether it’s in the first-degree, second-degree, or third-degree.
Engoron ended up penalizing Trump with a $10,000 fine, believing that Trump lied under oath when he claimed his hallway remarks were about Cohen, not Greenfield. Engoron said Trump’s comments were a “blatant” violation of his gag order, surmising that the former president was referring to his clerk in the hallway.
When Trump was on the witness stand, he told Engoron that his comments were referring to “you and Cohen.” One of Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Kise, argued that the “partisan” person in Trump’s statement was Cohen.
“The idea that that statement would refer to the witness, that doesn’t make sense to me,” Engoron said. “Don’t do it again, or it will be worse.”
Trump had already been fined $5,000 by Engoron and threatened with jail time on Friday for breaking the gag order. While Trump’s social media post about Engoron’s clerk was immediately taken off of Truth Social following the gag order, it was still on Trump’s website and had been for over two weeks. The webpage was taken down on October 19 in response to an email from the court.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.