Trump hit with fine after violating gag order for second time

Judge Arthur Engoron ruled on Wednesday that Donald Trump violated the gag order he set earlier this month for the second time.

Calling Trump to the stand, the judge asked Trump if he made comments this morning, quoted in the Associated Press, that were considered to be attacking a court clerk. Trump replied that he did and Engoron ruled it was a violation, reported MSNBC's Lisa Rubin.

“As you can see and everyone can see, first of all my principal law clerk is very close to me,” the judge explained while Trump was on the stand. “You and I can see each other, we’re close...and there’s a barrier between us, would that be at best somewhat ambiguous?”

“Don’t you always refer to Michael Cohen as Michael Cohen?” the judge continued, responding to claim made earlier in the day by Trump's lawyer Chris Kise that the comment had been directed at Cohen.

“No,” Trump claimed.

“Maybe worse,” Kise chimes in.

“Maybe a lot worse,” another Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, quipped.

Engoron excused Trump from the stand.

“As the trier of fact, I find the witness was not credible. He was referring to my law clerk, who is much closer to me,” Engoron said.

He hit Trump with a $10,000 fine.

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The AP reported that Trump, during a mornig recess, had repeated his frequently made attacks on the judge as a "partisan" – but added that he has "a person who is much more partisan sitting alongside of him," quoted The Messenger's Adam Klasfeld earlier on Wednesday.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

The implication was that Trump was talking about the court clerk who ran for a local judgeship and had photos taken with New York lawmakers like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The gag order issued earlier this month forbids Trump from attacking any member of the court's staff, and it was put in place after Trump suggested that the same clerk was Schumer's girlfriend.

After Trump failed to remove the comments from his campaign website, he was last week deemed in violation of the order and fined $5,000.

Engoron had said after the latest comments were made Wednesday that he was taking the AP's report "under advisement." He returned from lunch to rule that the order had been violated.

“The last time this gag order was violated...I accepted the explanation that it was inadvertent,” he said Wednesday morning. “This most recent statement, assuming the AP is correct, was intentional.

Trump's lawyer, Chris Kise, stepped in to defend Trump, insisting that Trump was talking about Michael Cohen, who appeared on the stand.

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President Donald Trump's niece issued a stark warning about the president's latest "extortion" scheme in a new Substack essay on Sunday.

Mary Trump, a psychologist and author, argued in a new essay that the Trump administration appears to be trying to extort state governments into complying with its legally dubious immigration tactics. She pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi's agreement to retreat immigration officers from Minnesota in exchange for the state's voter rolls and a guarantee that the state government will overturn its "sanctuary city" policies, both of which are policy priorities of the Trump administration.

Mary Trump argued that the "lawlessness" displayed by her uncle's administration presents "an increasing danger" to the American way of life.

"There is no longer any denying that the Trump regime is operating wholly outside the bounds of basic human decency and our shared values," she wrote. "It is a lawless regime that has no interest in protecting and defending the Constitution, the rights that are enshrined within it, or the life, liberty, and happiness of anyone living in this country."

"The lawlessness and viciousness with which these people operate are self-reinforcing; every day they present an increasing danger to our safety and our way of life," she added.

Read the entire essay by clicking here.

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President Donald Trump's recent social media post storm alarmed one doctor, who said on Sunday that he saw it as evidence that the president is suffering a common side effect from having a stroke.

Last week, Trump stayed up late into the night, firing off posts on Truth Social that ranged from attacks against his political enemies to complaints about how he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize and his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The late-night tirade seemed emblematic of someone who is suffering from "agitated depression," which is a common side effect of people who have suffered from a stroke, according to Dr. Bruce Davidson, a professor at Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.

Davidson discussed Trump's recent behavior on "The Daily Beast Podcast" with Joana Coles.

"He's up at night, which can worsen depression. It's common to get depression," Davidson said. "And, he's angry because he didn't get a Nobel Prize. I mean, here's a man who's been elected president twice, and he cares about a Nobel Prize. Bob Dylan got a Nobel Prize. What's the big deal? And, other things seem to get under his skin, and so it concerns me."

Davidson also claimed that the episode may show Trump needs more help from his surrounding medical advisors than he's currently receiving.

"A physician has three primary responsibilities. The first is relief of suffering. Second, prevent disability, and the third priority is postpone death. That's what we're supposed to do," Davidson said. "When I see the president appearing like a patient having trouble, I want his physicians to engage. And this illustrates, I regret to say, a terrible, increasing weakness in American medical leadership."

A legal expert issued a dire warning about how President Donald Trump's immigration officers are going to conduct themselves going forward after another American was killed while protesting in Minneapolis.

On Saturday, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti was gunned down by a swarm of immigration officers. The Trump administration claimed Pretti presented a threat to the officer's lives and called him a "domestic terrorist." The administration also claimed Pretti brandished a weapon at officers, even though video from the scene clearly contradicts that claim.

Pretti's killing happened about three weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross gunned down Renee Good in Minneapolis while she was leaving the scene of an immigration raid in her car. Good's killing sparked nationwide protests and calls for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to be impeached.

Legal expert Ryan Goodman discussed Pretti's killing with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann in a new YouTube video on Sunday.

"The response to the Alex Pretti incident is a green light," Goodman said. "It's a permission structure going forward, because we have the Secretary of Homeland Security calling Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist in her press conference, and it's the Department of Homeland Security's initial statement ... making these very false accusations against Pretti."

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