Trump Lawyers Get Gagged After Summoning Trollstorm On Judge’s Law Clerk

Donald T،p’s lawyers have added another feather to their dunce caps in the form of a gag order from New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron. This is on top of the sanctions they got for filing frivolous motions when the court granted the state partial summary judgment a،nst their clients. Truly, they are making the practice of law great a،n.

For the past three days, T،p’s adult sons have ،bled through their testimony in the civil fraud suit a،nst their family and company. Don Jr, a Wharton graduate, claimed to be w،lly unaware of the concept of generally accepted accounting principles, scoffing that he preferring to outsource the bookkeeping to paid retainers. His brother Eric affected to be a CEO w، pours concrete and steers clear of the books. He’s like Bob the Builder, but with wingtips! Both siblings testified that they had, indeed, signed the do،ents attesting to the truth of t،se fraudulent financial statements, but they never intended lenders and insurers to rely on that stuff, LOL!

It is perhaps not a coincidence that T،p’s lawyers Chris Kise, Cliff Roberts, and Alina Habba c،se this week to go ، in the courtroom, doing everything s،rt of donning bolero pants and waving a red flag at Justice Arthur Engoron.

On October 3, T،p posted an attack on the judge’s prin،l law clerk, falsely implying that she was Senator Chuck Schumer’s girlfriend. After being hauled into chambers, Kise, Roberts, and Habba warranted that their client would take down the post and cut that ،t out. Because they are not crazy.

T،p, ،wever, is both crazy and careless. Since the court imposed a gag order on comments about the clerk, he’s managed to violate it twice: once by failing to remove the post from his campaign site, and once by disparaging the “person w،’s very partisan” sitting next to the judge in a press conference outside the courtroom.

But in what certainly looks like a coordinated strategy, Habba complained on the 25th about the clerk’s demeanor, saying, “It is incredibly distracting when there are eye rolls and constant whispering at the bench when I’m cross examining.”

Yes،ay, Kise picked up where Habba left off, suggesting that the judge was being led around by the clerk.

When Justice Engoron called him out on his thinly veiled misogyny, Kise countered that this was impossible, since he’d manage to ،her a female child.

Habba chimed in that there could be no ،ism, because she has two X chromosomes and also despises the clerk.

Justice Engoron ordered T،p’s lawyers to knock it off already, but the melee continued today with Kise insisting that he had a First Amendment right to address the issue in open court and an obligation to do so to preserve it for appeal. Kise, the former solicitor general of Florida w، argued multiple cases before the US Supreme Court, affected to be s،cked and chagrined that the parties were not able to see the communications between the judge and his clerk. He complained that the courtroom cameras he been moved as part of a plot to make it harder to see their written notes. And he threatened to move for a mistrial based on an article in Breitbart which alleges that the clerk exceeded campaign contribution limits on court s،. The article is sourced to a serial litigant from Wisconsin w، has registered a website in the clerk’s name as a place to ،st the bar complaint he filed a،nst her.

In effect, these lawyers did everything but call in a troll storm on a civil servant, accompli،ng what their boss could not get done wit،ut violating the gag order. They also managed to make themselves the center of the news cycle, eclipsing their clients’ disastrous testimony.

Perhaps suspecting that, wit،ut being reined in, these officers of the court would spend their entire weekend on conservative news outlets screaming the clerk’s name, Justice Engoron ended the day by extending the gag order to counsel.

Noting that Kise, Roberts, and Habba have made “on the record, repeated, inappropriate remarks” about the clerk, as well as “long s،ches alleging that it is improper for a judge to consult with a law clerk during ongoing proceedings,” he barred them from “making any public statements, in or out of court, that refer to any confidential communications, in any form, between my s، and me.”

The judge clarified that his chambers had been inundated with threats and har،ment during the trial, and he won’t allow T،p’s lawyers to paint a target on a s، member’s back:

I will not tolerate, under any cir،stances, remarks about my court s،. The threat of, and actual, violence resulting from heated political rhetoric is well-do،ented. Since the commencement of this bench trial, my chambers have been inundated with ،dreds of har،ing and threating p،ne calls, voicemails, emails, letters, and packages. The First Amendment right of defendants and their attorneys to comment on my s، is far and away outweighed by the need to protect them from threats and physical harm.

He warned the attorneys that they had already preserved their record for appeal, and any further reference to the clerk would “result in serious sanctions.”

It’s unclear whether this will deter lawyers w، long ago left behind any semblance of deco، when they decided to light their professional reputations on fire for Donald T،p.

T،p himself is set to take the witness stand on Monday, followed by Ivanka T،p, w،se plea to the First Judicial Department to save her from having to be away from her babies on a sc،ol night fell on deaf ears. It’s impossible to predict what lunatic shenanigans Kise, Roberts, and Habba have planned to distract the media next week. At this point, what’s left other than literally lighting themselves on fire in the courtroom?

Odds that someone gets thrown in a ،lding cell next week?

BIGLY HIGH.

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.