Donald Trump addresses reporters on the opening day of his New York fraud trial.
Seth Wenig
Trump’s lawyers say that threats against the law clerk in the NY civil fraud trial aren’t his fault.In a court filing, his lawyers argue that the law clerk chose to put herself in a public position.State attorneys previously argued that Trump’s insults drove his supporters to send her threatening messages.
In an ongoing battle over the gag order in Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud case, the former president’s lawyers argue that concerns about the law clerk receiving threatening messages are not valid because she’s getting publicity in court.
In a request for a stay of the gag order, which was filed Monday, the former president’s lawyers argued that Trump should not be held responsible for threats his supporters sent the law clerk because she decided to show up to court, where she knew she would be publicly photographed and filmed.
“The purported security concerns are disingenuous given the Principal Law Clerk’s voluntary public, partisan posts and political activities and her insistence in remaining as a constant and unprecedented presence on the bench, allowing herself to be filmed and then viewed by an audience of millions since the underlying, extraordinarily high-profile trial commenced,” the lawyers write in the court document.
The request was among nearly 2,000 pages of court documents Trump’s lawyers filed with a New York appeals court. Their exhibits included Trump’s failed November 15 bid for a mistrial.
Trump’s lawyers also argued in the request that threats to the law clerk are overblown, writing in the filing that while messages sent to the law clerk attacking her “religion, appearance, and personal activities” are “vile and reprehensible,” they do not suggest that she is in “imminent harm.”
Justice Arthur Engoron first issued the gag order, which has since been paused, last month after the former president repeatedly railed against the law clerk on social media and to reporters outside the courtroom.
An attorney for the state court system, Lisa Evans, has argued that Trump’s insults have driven his supporters to send “hundreds and hundreds of anti-Semitic comments” to the law clerk’s personal phone and email every day, Insider previously reported.
The gag order remains paused — allowing Trump to continue disparaging the clerk — while an appeals court decides if it violates Trump’s right to free speech, as his team has argued.
In the ongoing civil fraud trial, New York Attorney General Letitia James has accused Trump of fraudulently inflating his net worth. Trump has pleaded not guilty.