Judge says he’ll look at Donald Trump’s comments, reconsider $10,000 fine for gag order violation

A New York judge said Thursday he would take a fuller look at Donald Trump’s out-of-court comments and reconsider a $10,000 fine he imposed on the former president a day earlier at his civil fraud trial.

The development came after Trump’s lawyers urged Judge Arthur Engoron to rethink the penalty. The judge fined Trump on Wednesday after finding that his comments to TV cameras outside the courtroom violated a gag order that bars participants in the trial from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff.

Outside court Wednesday, the Republican presidential front-runner complained that Engoron, a Democrat, is “a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”