Donald Trump spent recent days on social media posting screenshots of tweets purporting to show the wife of New York judge Arthur Engoron denigrating the former president. Engoron is overseeing the state case against Trump for allegedly lying about his net worth and the value of his properties. But the tweets that have gone viral, thanks in large part to a far-right conspiracy theorist, aren’t hers.
“Justice Engoron’s wife has sent no social media posts regarding the former president,” Al Baker, a spokesperson for New York’s Office of Court Administration, wrote in a statement obtained by the Messenger on Thursday. “They are not hers.”
Trump appears to have gotten the tweets from Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist who most recently spread panic on X by insisting a car explosion at the U.S.-Canada border was by Muslim terrorists trying to make their way to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. As it turned out, the car was actually driven by an American driving into Canada and the FBI has said there are no apparent links to terrorism. Loomer was previously banned from Twitter, now X, for years over her anti-Muslim bigotry, but regained her account after Elon Musk about the site in late 2022.
Engoron and his staff has been repatedly attacked by Trump on Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform that he launched in 2022, with Trump at one point sharing a shirtless photo of Engoron working out, something that has since been deleted.
But the attacks have gotten more personal in recent days, as Trump has suggested the tweets he’s sharing came from Engoron’s wife. Loomer presented no evidence for why she thought the account, which had the name Dawn Marie before it was deleted, belonged to a family member of Engoron.
Engoron imposed a gag order in early October against Trump during the fraud trial after the former president posted a photo of the judge’s clerk, Allison Greenfield, along with Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, and called her “Schumer’s girlfriend.” Engoron and his staff have reportedly received numerous death threats during the trial.
Trump has repeatedly threatened potential witnesses in his many indictments, going so far at one point as to suggest that Gen. Mark Milley should be executed for treason. The gag order was temporarily lifted but was reinstated on Thursday by an appeals court, though there’s no guarantee that Trump will abide by the order. Trump has already been fined twice for violating the gag order, racking up $15,000 in fines so far.
An outcome in the New York case isn’t expected to come until January 2024, according to the New York Times. Trump has been indicted four times, and will almost certainly be in court during much of the 2024 presidential campaign. But that hasn’t put a dent in his popularity with some Americans. In fact, it seems to be energizing his base.
A new poll from Harris has Trump at 68% support within the Republican Party, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis taking second with just 9%. And Trump has a real shot at becoming president again, if the latest national polls are to be believed. Many recent polls show Trump with a slight lead against president Joe Biden if the election were held today. Even states that aren’t considered traditional battleground states have Trump within the poll’s margin of error. For instance, in Minnesota poll respondents chose Biden (45%) over Trump (42%), which shows anything can happen during next year’s election.
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