AP Explains: Trump fined $10,000 for violating gag order

(25 Oct 2023) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS New York - 25 October 2023 1. Wide of former President Donald Trump exiting courtroom HEADLINE: AP EXPLAINS: JUDGE FINES TRUMP FOR MAKING COMMENT 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Jake Offenhartz, Associated Press: PARTIALLY COVERED “It was a dramatic and unexpected day in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Donald Trump. Donald Trump was told to take the stand with very little warning, and then he was fined $10,000 for insulting the judge’s law clerk. Previously, Trump had been issued a gag order because he disparaged the clerk on social media. He was accused of violating that gag order today when he went outside the courtroom and told the press that he had problems with both the very partisan judge and the partisan who was sitting next to the judge. “ 3. Wide of Trump exiting courtroom 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, former US President: “The judge is a very partisan judge with a person who is very partisan sitting alongside of him.“ 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jake Offenhartz, Associated Press: PARTIALLY COVERED “And he didn’t say exactly who that person was. And his attorneys claimed that actually he was talking about Michael Cohen, his former fixer who was on the stand today for the second straight day. Trump took the stand, he maintained he was talking about Cohen, but the judge said that his testimony was not credible and he issued that $10,000 fine. A few minutes later, Trump apparently frustrated, threw his hands in the air and he walked out of the courtroom, seeming to surprise his Secret Service.“ 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, former US President: “The judge should end this trial immediately, thank you.“ 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jake Offenhartz, Associated Press: SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED “His lawyers at that point asked for the judge to basically the trial, saying Cohen had proven himself not credible. And the judge replied, “Absolutely not.““ 8. Various of Michael Cohen at courthouse 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Jake Offenhartz, Associated Press: SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED “Today, the lawyers really pushed him on whether or not he had committed perjury in past testimony, whether or not he stands by his claims about Trump not necessarily telling him to inflate his assets. At one point, Cohen kind of just went silent. He stopped responding to the attorneys. And eventually, he kind of conceded that Trump had not explicitly told him to inflate his assets. This is a key point in the trial. Later on, he said, well, Trump talks like a mob boss, you kind of know what he means. Even if I said before, he didn’t explicitly tell me that I understood what was expected of me.“ ENDS ON A SOUNDBITE STORYLINE: The judge in Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial has fined the former president $10,000. The judge says Trump violated a limited gag order barring personal attacks on court staffers. The fine was issued Wednesday after Trump complained outside court about what he called “a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside” the judge in the case, Arthur Engoron. Weeks ago, Engoron ordered all participants in the case not to comment publicly about his staff. The Oct. 3. gag order came after Trump made a social media post maligned the judge’s principal law clerk, who sits beside him in court. Trump said his comment Wednesday was about witness Michael Cohen, not the clerk. Engoron said Trump’s claim was “not credible.“ After a decade of working as Trump’s fixer, Cohen came under federal scrutiny and broke with his boss in 2018. Find out more about AP Archive: Twitter: Facebook: ​​ Instagram: You can license this story through AP Archive: