Former US President Donald Trump was fined $5000 by a New York Judge for violating a partial gag order. On Saturday, Mr Trump shared a video on his Truth Social platform calling the judge Arthur Engoron overseeing his civil fraud case a "lunatic".
The caption of the video reads, "It's scary to think of the amount of power this lunatic currently has."
The video compiles clips from a 2015 speech Engoron gave to students at Queensborough Community College in New York City, Engoron admits "it's hard to factor out my own emotions" in court cases, and that "juries get it wrong a lot," adding he has experienced situations in court that prompted him to ask, "how could [the jury] have thought that?", Forbes reported.
Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the 77-year-old Trump to pay the fine within the next 10 days to the New York Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection. "Make no mistake: future violations, whether intentional or unintentional, will subject the violator to far more severe sanctions," judge said in a court filing.
Judge Engoron slapped a limited gag order on the former president on October 3 after he insulted the judge's principal law clerk in a social media post on his Truth Social platform, AFP reported.
The offending post was removed from Truth Social the same day, but the judge complained in his filing on Friday that it remained on a Trump 2024 campaign website for 17 days, until the court asked on Thursday that it be taken down.
Mr Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and his two eldest sons are accused in the New York case of inflating the value of the real estate assets of the Trump Organization to receive more favourable bank loans and insurance terms.
