Trump's Attorneys Struggle to Clean Up His Mess

Former President Donald Trump's attorneys struggled to clean up the outrage his social media posts have caused after an "easygoing" judge in Manhattan threatened Trump with jail time and heavy fines.

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ripped into Trump's defense team on Friday morning as he addressed a Truth Social post that the former president made earlier this month about a court employee, threatening "serious sanctions" for violating a gag order.

From the bench, Engoron told the court that, "incendiary comments can and in some cases already has, led to serious physical harm and worse," before giving the floor to Trump's team to explain why the former president's "blatant violation of the gag order would not result in serious sanctions, including financial sanctions and/or possibly imprisoning him."

Trump attorney Christopher Kise immediately began apologizing to Engoron, telling him it was an accident and blaming the post in question on the "very large machine" that is Trump's 2024 campaign.

"There was no intention to evade or circumvent or ignore the order. I assure you that. I just know that this is a very large machine and this is one of the reasons, frankly, I don't have social media," Kise said. ""But that's been taken down. And we don't have any other...there were no subsequent postings."

Earlier this month, Engoron had ordered Trump to delete an "untrue and personally identifying post" about the judge's principal law clerk and subsequently imposed a gag order barring the former president from making statement's about his staff. Trump had taken down that post, but his campaign left up a mirroring message from his official website.

On Friday, Engoron recalled his limited gag order, which forbids "all parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any members of my staff," and his clear intolerance for any personal attacks on his staff.

"Despite this clear order, last night I learned that the subject of the offending post was never removed from the website donaldjtrump.com, and in fact had been on that website for the past 17 days," Engoron said. "I understand that it was removed late last night, but only in response to email from this court."

The judge, who has been described as "easygoing" throughout Trump's civil trial, said while he'd consider Kise's reasoning, "Donald Trump is still responsible for the large machine."

Engoron will rule on the matter later.

Trump, his two eldest sons and the Trump Organization are currently facing trial for the $250 million fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused the defendants of wildly inflating their assets and net worth to deceive insurers and others.

Trump lashed out at James again over social media on Thursday, sharing James' address online, which caught the attention of observers who say it could potentially violate the gag order.

Sharing a post from conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer that accused James of conspiring with "Christian J. French, The Trump hating COO and heir to the Anti-Trump 'Regional News Network,'" Trump said: James' "Fake Case against me should be dropped immediately!"

Loomer's post also included a loan modification form that listed what appears to be James' home address in Brooklyn.

"Posting a link to the personal address of his prosecutor for his millions of followers to see is way out of line and puts James in danger," liberal political action committee MeidasTouch said.

Engoron did not address the post related to James on Friday.