Alina Habba

Former President Donald Trump has set his sights on the wife of a New York Supreme Court justice presiding over his $250 million fraud trial.

On his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Trump shared at least four links about Justice Arthur Engoron's wife, Dawn Marie Engoron.

With a D.C. Appeals Court set to make a ruling on a gag order imposed upon Donald Trump this coming week, a former U.S. attorney claimed lawyers for the embattled former president have been "misleading" the court as they battle with the Department of Justice.

Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, former prosecutor Barbara McQuade claimed the court needs to take seriously the threats being aimed at court officials in multiple jurisdictions after Trump ranted about them in speeches and on his Truth Social platform.

According to McQuade, arguments made by Trump's lawyers last week had nothing to do with the matter at hand.

"Let's speak quickly about this Appeals Court appearance for Donald Trump," host Phang prompted. "He seems to spend a lot of time in trial court, he is in appellate courts a lot. There was a filing done in the New York AG civil fraud case appeal by the state, by New York state. It detailed thousands of horrible, violent, antisemitic messages that were being received by the law clerk as well as Judge [Arthur] Engoron."

"From an evidentiary perspective, does the Appeals Court take that into perspective what is going to be hearing oral arguments tomorrow?" she asked.

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'I think so, Katie," the former prosecutor replied. "That is because it shows that it's not imaginative or speculative harm. These are real threats coming in every day and disrupting the business of the court, putting its employees in harm's way."

"One of the things that the [Trump] lawyers have done, that is very misleading here, is to look at cases outside of the context of court, of opinion criminal cases. You know, prior restraints are frowned upon of course. Anything that limits core political speech is antithetical to the 1st Amendment."

"That's not the world that we are in," she elaborated. "We are in the world of a trial. And so inside a trial to protect the parties, to protect court staff and to protect the fair administration of justice, those rules are different. And so I hope that the court sees the light and understand the very threat on the one hand versus the restriction on the other."

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Appearing on MSNBC on Thanksgiving weekend, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner stated that judges are getting fed up with assertions made by lawyers for Donald Trump trying to forestall gag orders that would bar him from launching attacks on prosecutors, judges and courthouse employees.

Speaking with host Katie Phang about a new motion made over Thanksgiving by the Department of Justice to rein in the former president, Kirschner claimed the arguments made by Trump's lawyers that he can't be held responsible for violent threats aimed at his targets by his supporters isn't going to fly with judges much longer.

"I sat through the argument earlier this week in the D.C. Court of Appeals case, regarding the constitutionality of the gag order and there was discussion about what was going on in other jurisdictions," Kirschner explained. "Similarly, Judge [Tanya] Chutkan was presiding over the trial in Donald Trump's case, has regularly talked about what's going on in other jurisdictions."

"So I think this evidence will probably be accepted by the appellate court and Donald Trump's lawyers, as recently as yesterday, filed their reply and they continue to ask the judges to just check your common sense at the door," he continued. "You don't need to bring it with you to bear on this issue. One thing stood out about the letter that Trump's team filed yesterday; they say, again, Mr. Trump did not directly threaten [Judge Arthur Engoron clerk] Miss Greenfield. That is the broken peg on which they continue to try to hang their legal argument."

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"The good news, Katie, is in court on Monday, Judge Patricia Millett directly knocked that down," he elaborated, "She said, and I quote, 'there is a clear pattern here.' Donald Trump issued a statement, and witnesses get threatened. So, I think the judges are beyond this nonsensical claim that Donald Trump just says things that are hyper-critical of the witnesses who are expected to testify against them, and he should bear no sort of consequences when his supporters instantly rise to his call and begin intimidating, threatening, and harassing the witnesses."

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