In the midst of the assault on former President Donald Trump by a corrupt political and legal establishment, the Wall Street Journal, not a Trump fan, headlined this opinion commentary from Philip Hamburger:
The First Amendment Threat in the Trump Civil Case
New York’s Executive Law threatens to suppress scientific and political as well as commercial speech.
Hamburger is listed by the WSJ as a lecturer at Columbia Law School and the CEO of the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Hamburger writes:
Can the government penalize someone for an inaccurate statement that wasn’t made with bad intent, recklessness or negligence, and that didn’t cause concrete harm to an identifiable third party? That’s the First Amendment question underlying the civil-fraud suit against Donald Trump. The stakes are high for the former president—and for the rest of us.
New York’s Attorney Gen. Letitia James has charged Mr. Trump under the state’s Executive Law for allegedly overstating his business’s real-estate assets. The statute, however, has long been constitutionally suspect….
The statute is utterly disproportionate, authorizing the court to shut down a defendant’s entire business—simply for inaccuracy. The law is so draconian that few have challenged it. What defendant would want to dispute the attorney general’s authority given the risk of retaliation?
The former president issued a statement saluting the WSJ piece, saying:
Wall Street Journal Opinion, one which is shared by almost everyone. This Publicity-seeking Judge, who is having a great time persecuting my very innocent children, and me, is out-of-control. He has been overturned many times, but this case should never have been brought (and if brought, should have been in the Commercial Division), by a corrupt and racist Attorney General, who used all of this for her Campaigns, including that for Governor.
In terms of Judge Arthur Engoron, as I have noted before in this space:
New York Justice Arthur F. Engoron joins the long parade of corrupt political insiders who have made the outsider former president a target.
Recall that the judge — the judge! — described defendant Trump as such: “He’s just a bad guy.” So much for an impartial judge.
Then there was this Breitbart investigation and report on Engoron. The headline:
Complaint Calls for Trump New York Trial Judge’s Clerk to Be Disbarred for Excessive Political Donations
Breitbart ace reporter Matt Boyle reports this:
The top clerk for New York Justice Arthur Engoron, Allison Greenfield, appears to have violated judicial rules preventing officers of the court from making excessive political donations, Breitbart News has learned.
What’s more, it appears Engoron was advised of Greenfield’s violations in a 72-page complaint addressed to his court via email that was also filed with the New York State Bar Association the same day he decided to issue a gag order against former President Donald Trump in his case currently playing out in Engoron’s Manhattan courtroom. Engoron has subsequently fined Trump a total of $15,000 for two alleged violations of that gag order preventing the former president from criticizing his principal law clerk.
Boyle goes on to note this from the X account @JudicialProtest, run by one Brock Fredin from Wisconsin. Fredin’s statement said this:
My name is Brock Fredin and I operate the Twitter account @JudicialProtest. I write with respect to the blatantly unethical and partisan conduct of Your Honor’s Principal Law Clerk Allison Greenfield, the Court’s “Gag Order” issued today concerning President Trump’s retweeting of my tweet about Ms. Greenfield and Senator Chuck Schumer taken at a Chelsea Reform Democrat Club brunch and the overly apparent appearance of impropriety in the above-referenced matter with respect to Ms. Greenfield’s repeated partisan political and Democrat activities while employed as a law clerk. Given that President Trump’s post at-issue today was a re-tweet of my original tweet on the @JudicialProtest account, the Court’s order directing President Trump to remove it is a direct attack on my First Amendment rights (as well as President Trump’s), particularly since the Court asserted on the record that my tweet was a “personal attack” on Ms. Greenfield rather than a post exposing and criticizing the misconduct of a public official. I am consequently an interested party and submit this letter as such. To be clear, though, this letter and its contents are not a “personal attack” on Ms. Greenfield. Rather, this letter contains receipts and raises serious ethical violations as to her political speech and activities involving the Democrat Party while employed as your law clerk that undoubtedly create an appearance of impropriety in People v. Trump et al.
Fredin wrote in this 72-page complaint of Greenfield’s relationships with powerful New York Democrats — Trump haters all. (Can you say Sen. Chuck Schumer?) Also reported by Boyle:
[Fredin’s] complaint notes that Greenfield has engaged in giving political donations to Democrat candidates and causes in excess of the amount of donations that court officials in New York are allowed to give on an annual basis….
New York ethics rules prohibit court officials like Greenfield from giving in excess of $500 in the aggregate in a particular calendar year in political donations.
And to cut to the chase, Greenfield is alleged to have repeatedly violated those rules. Boyle again:
What, if anything, becomes of these alleged violations of the ethics rules by Greenfield remains to be seen. The judge in the case for now keeps siding with her, and even as recently as Thursday afternoon’s proceedings, according to live updates from New York Times reporters in the courtroom. Greenfield’s presence at Engoron’s side has been a centerpiece of the case as the trial plays out. The judge accused one Trump lawyer of “misogyny,” according to the Times, for raising questions about Greenfield.
“Justice Arthur Engoron is taking Christopher M. Kise, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, to task for disparaging his law clerk, Allison Greenfield. The judge says he thinks it may be a problem of misogyny and asks Kise not to mention his court staff again,” the New York Times’s Jonah Bromwich reported from the court. Kate Christobek, another Times reporter, added that Engoron threatened on Thursday to extend the gag order against Trump to his attorneys as well if they kept raising questions about Greenfield.
“Alina Habba, another of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, is now also complaining about Greenfield having improper influence on the judge, talking to him during proceedings. Habba says Greenfield’s conduct is a part of the record and the case. ‘I’m not going to stand by and allow it to happen,’ Habba says, asserting that because she is a woman, she is no misogynist,” Bromwich added in another Thursday update.
One could go on — and on and on — here. But the bottom line is that both the judge and his law clerk are not about the fair and impartial administration of the law. They are Democrat political hacks, and they are making it their business to “Get Trump.”
So, as previously noted, is New York Attorney General Letitia James. She who says Trump’s administration is “too male and too pale” accuses Trump of racism? Really? As recent Sean Hannity radio guest Leo Terrell noted — and Terrell is an African American — she is a flat-out racist. And she who has used her office to bully and harass Trump and his family says she “will not be bullied” and “harassed”? Really? This is more than a little backward.
The humorous side of this? The more the corrupt judge and his seriously partisan chief clerk, plus the corrupt, race-driven attorney general, go after Trump — the better he does.
Just the other day there was this headline in the New York Times:
Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds
Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.
The Times report notes:
Voters, by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin, said they better trusted Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on the economy, the largest gap of any issue. The preference for Mr. Trump on economic matters spanned the electorate, among both men and women, those with college degrees and those without them, every age range and every income level.
So.
To add it all up?
What Americans are seeing is a corrupt New York legal establishment, with a judge and his clerk shown as having vividly provable ties to the corrupt New York Democratic Party political establishment, combined with a race-driven, corrupt New York attorney general, wildly abusing their power in the style of out-and-out fascists.
These three people have brought shame to both themselves and the administration of an impartial system of justice.
And just as the Wall Street Journal headlined in that piece by Philip Hamburger, the threat to silence Trump is indeed a threat to America.
Somewhere down the road, there must be a legal reckoning for all of this.
The guess in this corner is that — one way or another — there will be.
And should.
