“I am very protective of my staff,” Justice Engoron said, adding, “I don’t want anyone to get killed.”
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, protested that the former president had actually been referring to his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who was testifying for a second day.
The judge responded that the target of the comments had seemed clear to him, but that he would take the matter under advisement. When he fined Mr. Trump $5,000 last week — an amount that on Wednesday he referred to as “minimal” — he issued a written order explaining his decision after the trial had ended for the day.
That violation was something of a technicality: Though the comments about Ms. Greenfield were deleted from social media, they had also been posted to Mr. Trump’s website and were never taken down.
By contrast, Mr. Trump made his statement Wednesday to reporters in the hall outside the courtroom, where he typically addresses television cameras. It demonstrated the danger of the gag order to a former president known for spontaneous monologues in which he attacks his enemies.