Manhattan Judge Weighs New Sanctions Against Donald Trump

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A Manhattan judge is threatening to punish Donald Trump’s lawyers for ‘frivolous litigation’. Justice Arthur Engoron is presiding over the New Attorney General’s case against Trump’s business. Last spring, Engoron hit Trump with a $10,000-a-day fine for flouting subpoenas in the same case. Loading Something is loading.

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A Manhattan judge is threatening to punish Donald Trump’s lawyers for filing a “frivolous lawsuit” in the New York attorney general’s $250 million lawsuit against the former president and his New York-based business empire.

The threat against three law firms defending Trump by New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron was revealed in court appearances Thursday night.

“This court is considering imposing sanctions for frivolous litigation against attorneys from Habba Madaio & Associates LLP; Continental PLLC; and Robert & Robert PLLC,” the judge said in a Jan. 4 email to all parties to the attorney general’s lawsuit.

The unspecified penalties will punish the three companies for filing motions to dismiss the lawsuit that set forth “the same legal arguments that this court previously rejected,” Engoron wrote. That rejection came in November, when he denied Trump’s request for a preliminary injunction halting the attorney general’s lawsuit.

The judge said Trump’s repeated arguments for dismissal included that New York Attorney General Letitia James lacked legal standing to sue, that her lawsuit was part of a political “witch-hunt,” and a simple disclaimer essentially warning lenders to check Trump’s math gives the former president immunity from James’ fraud.

In a response filed late Thursday, the three law firms countered that Engoron’s November rejection of their arguments was “a preliminary finding” and does not preclude them from raising the same arguments now.

The three law firms also said the judge’s email “provides an annoyingly small amount of notice and time for counsel to respond.” Engoron asked the attorney general’s office and Trump’s defense lawyers to respond to his “frivolous trial” accusation within a day.

In their own response, attorneys for James agreed with the judge, calling Trump’s current dismissal arguments “rehashed” and “calculated to delay the proceedings and unnecessarily divert the parties and the resources of the court.”

Engoron’s email subject-lined “POTENTIAL SANCTIONS FOR FRIVOLOUS LITIGATION did not indicate when he would decide whether to impose sanctions or detail what those sanctions would be.

Engoron has led since 2021 James’ investigation into Trump’s real-estate and golf-resort empire and his 200-plus-page lawsuit in September, seeking to bar the Trump Organization from doing business in New York because of what he called a pattern of financial fraud.

The judge set what he said was a firm trial date of Oct. 2 for the lawsuit.

Engoron is the same judge who, in April, found Trump in contempt of court leading up to the filing of the lawsuit, for failing to fully comply with the attorney general’s subpoenas for a decade’s worth of his personal business document.

Engoron’s $10,000-a-day non-compliance fine rose to $110,000 in late June when a judge lifted the contempt order.

In the end, Trump only provided 10 personal business documents, even though the Trump Organization itself provided 900,000 documents to the James investigation.

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