Trump Has Been Pushing Lies About Judge’s Wife, Court Says

Nikki McCann Ramirez
·3 min read
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Donald Trump’s attacks against Dawn Engoron, the wife of New York Judge Arthur Engoron, were — surprise — likely based on a lie. The former president spent several days this week targeting Mrs. Engoron, accusing her of posting anti-Trump content on her social media and claiming her opinion of him was evidence of bias in her husband’s rulings on Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York.

“Justice Engoron’s wife has sent no social media posts regarding the former president,” Al Baker, the state spokesperson for New York’s Office of Court Administration, wrote Thursday in a statement to The Messenger. “They are not hers.”

Trump’s viral posts attacking Mrs. Engoron were based on blogs and social media posts authored by extremist, pro-Trump advocate Laura Loomer, a known purveyor of misinformation. Earlier this month Loomer published screenshots of anti-Trump X (formerly Twitter) posts from an account operating under the name “Dawn Marie.” Throughout November Loomer alleged, without offering concrete evidence, that the account belonged to Mrs. Engoron.

Mrs. Engoron told Newsweek earlier this month that she does “not have a Twitter account. This is not me. I have not posted any anti Trump messages.”

Regardless, Trump seized on Loomer’s allegations to claim that Judge Engoron was overseeing irreparably biased proceedings against him, an argument the former president and his attorneys have repeatedly attempted to make in court.

“Judge Engoron’s Trump Hating wife, together with his very disturbed and angry law clerk, have taken over control of the New York State Witch Hunt Trial aimed at me, my family, and the Republican Party,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social.

On Friday, after the court had refuted his claims against Mrs. Engoron, Trump doubled down on Truth Social. The former president claimed that “Judge Engoron’s Wife deleted her account yesterday, because what she said, in any other Court in the Nation, would call for an immediate Mistrial with sanctions against the Judge and the Attorney General.”

“We demand to see her account before it was deleted, and all other Family Members likewise. Judge Engoron is a Trump Hater and Puppet for Letitia James, all wrapped up in one!” He added.

Engoron had previously leveled a gag order against Trump and his legal team after the former president attacked Engoron’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield, on social media. The order barred the affected parties from attacking or making public comments targeting the judge’s staff and court employees. On Thursday, a New York appeals court upheld the restrictions. Around the same time as the ruling, Trump leveled a fresh barrage of attacks against Mrs. Engoron, sharing screenshots of the account the court says does not actually belong to her. Trump has already been sanctioned twice by the court for violating the gag order.

The former president’s decision to attack members of Engoron’s family, when the Judge and his staff are already being subjected to a barrage of harassment and violent threats, could draw more ire from the court. Engoron is tasked with ruling on the future of Trump’s real-estate empire, and the penalties that will be leveled against him by the state of New York, but as the trial proceeds, it’s clear that Trump is his own worst advocate.

This article was updated at 1:00 PM EST on Dec. 1, 2023, to include additional statements from Former President Donald Trump.

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