Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Thursday released a written order detailing why he determined Donald Trump’s Wednesday sworn testimony denying that he attacked a court clerk “rings hollow and untrue” after he fined the former president $10,000 for his second violation of a partial gag order meant to protect courtroom staff.
The former president had claimed on the witness stand that he had been referring to his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen as the “partisan” sitting “alongside” Engoron when he spoke to reporters outside the courtroom on Wednesday. But the judge was unconvinced, deeming that excuse “not credible.”
“Witnesses do not sit ‘alongside’ the judge, they sit in the witness box, separated from the judge by a low wooden barrier,” Engoron wrote in the order, obtained by The Messenger. “Further, Donald Trump’s past public statements demonstrate him referring to Michael Cohen directly by his name, or by a derogatory name, but in all circumstances, he is unambiguous in making it known he is referring to Michael Cohen.”
He added: “Using imprecise language as an excuse to create plausible ambiguity about whether defendant violated this Court’s unequivocal gag order is not a defense; the subject of Donald Trump’s public statement to the press was unmistakably clear.”
Good on the judge.
Scumbags like Trump thrive in the gaps and ambiguities that normal decency shouldn’t have to fill. They break down standards of decency that shouldn’t have to be codified.
Authoritarians and people who need authority will do anything they can get away with - but we can’t write laws for every single little scheme anyone could ever come to up with.
We need guiding principles and a respect for the spirit of the law.
Trump tried to play innocent but it doesn’t count in the courtroom.
His audience can’t help him in there.