Judge upholds Trump’s $10K fine for violating gag order: ‘Clear transition’

A Manhattan judge double-downed on Donald Trump’s $10,000 fine for violating a gag order in his civil fraud trial — after the ex-president’s attorneys urged the jurist to reconsider the penalty on Thursday.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron reaffirmed his finding that Trump, 77, had violated the order barring him from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff with his comments to TV cameras outside the courtroom on Wednesday.

Trump said that Engoron was “a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

The judge found that Trump was commenting on top law clerk Allison Greenfield, who sits directly next to Engoron, on his right.

Trump lawyer Christopher Kise again argued on Thursday that the ex-president was referring to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen – who was testifying in a circus-like day in court – when he referred to the person “sitting alongside” the judge.

“His business is being attacked, and he’s entitled to comment, fairly, on what he perceives in open court,” Kise said, as he asked Engoron to reconsider the fine.

Engeron considered the matter briefly before he kept his decision as is, saying it was clear Trump had been speaking about Greenfield because the former president moments later referred to Cohen as a “discredited witness.”

“That was, to me, a clear transition from one person to another, and I think the person originally referred to was my clerk,” Engoron said.

Trump, who wasn’t in court Thursday, created a stir the day prior when he was called to the witness stand to set the record straight about the comments he made in the hallway.

The presidential hopeful maintained that he was speaking about Cohen when questioned by Engoron — but the judge made a swift decision just moments after Trump left the stand, saying that Trump was “not credible” and fining him $10,000 for breaching the gag order again.

Trump had already been warned twice and fined $5,000 after making public attacks against Greenfield, whom he disparaged near the beginning of the trial as “Schumer’s girlfriend” in a since-deleted post on Truth Social.

Trump’s first fine came after the judge found out that the social media post had not been removed from his campaign website — and threatened to jail him for future breaches of the gag order.

Engoron again warned Trump that the consequences would be more severe if he violated the gag order again.

“Don’t do it again, or it will be worse,” he said in court Wednesday.

Trump later stormed out of the courtroom, causing the Secret Service to rush after him when the judge denied a motion by his attorneys to have the case thrown out over Cohen’s testimony.

With Post wires