In the Spotlight
Frank Bergman
November 3, 2023
From Slay News
Allison Greenfield, the top clerk for Arthur Engoron, the judge in President Donald Trump’s New York case, is facing calls for disbarment after her excessive political donations to Democrats were exposed.
Greenfield appears to have violated judicial rules over the donations to Democrat politicians.
The rules prevent officers of the court from making excessive political donations.
Further, it appears Judge Engoron was advised of Greenfield’s violations in a 72-page complaint addressed to his court via email.
The complaint was also filed with the New York State Bar Association the same day Engoron decided to issue a gag order against Trump.
The politically motivated anti-Trump case is currently playing out in Engoron’s Manhattan courtroom.
Engoron’s gag order prevents the 45th president from criticizing his principal law clerk.
The radical judge has subsequently fined Trump a total of $15,000 for two alleged violations of that
However, the evidence laid out against Greenfield, in the complaint that a third party filed against her, is astounding.
Such complaints are usually confidential.
The Wisconsin man who filed it, however, published the entire complaint online.
It was filed by a man named Brock Fredin who runs a Twitter account exposing such conflicts called Judicial Protest.
“My name is Brock Fredin and I operate the Twitter account @JudicialProtest,” Fredin wrote in the October 3, 2023, complaint sent to Engoron.
“I write with respect to the blatantly unethical and partisan conduct of Your Honor’s Principal Law Clerk Allison Greenfield, the Court’s ‘Gag Order’ issued today concerning President Trump’s retweeting of my tweet about Ms. Greenfield and Senator Chuck Schumer taken at a Chelsea Reform Democrat Club brunch and the overly apparent appearance of impropriety in the above-referenced matter with respect to Ms. Greenfield’s repeated partisan political and Democrat activities while employed as a law clerk.
“Given that President Trump’s post at-issue today was a re-tweet of my original tweet on the @JudicialProtest account, the Court’s order directing President Trump to remove it is a direct attack on my First Amendment rights (as well as President Trump’s), particularly since the Court asserted on the record that my tweet was a ‘personal attack’ on Ms. Greenfield rather than a post exposing and criticizing the misconduct of a public official.
“I am consequently an interested party and submit this letter as such.
“To be clear, though, this letter and its contents are not a ‘personal attack’ on Ms. Greenfield.
“Rather, this letter contains receipts and raises serious ethical violations as to her political speech and activities involving the Democrat Party while employed as your law clerk that undoubtedly create an appearance of impropriety in People v. Trump et al.”
The 72-page complaint is available on a websitethat Fredin seemingly created in order to make the filing public.
Therefore, since the complainant released it, its contents are now publicly available information.
Throughout the complaint, it details significant political activity that Greenfield has engaged in.
This activity includes close relationships with top New York Democrats, including U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Greenfield also has a close relationship with former Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).
The complaint also details several efforts she engaged in as a Democrat Party organizer.
According to the evidence, Greenfield was canvassing for Democratic Party officials and working to elect Democrats to office.
More importantly, the complaint notes that Greenfield has donated heavily to Democrat candidates and causes.
These political donations are far in excess of the amounts that court officials in New York are allowed to give on an annual basis.
Moreover, it also reveals that she was endorsed by Democrats while running to be a New York Civil Court Judge while the case was pending.
New York ethics rules prohibit court officials like Greenfield from giving in excess of $500 in the aggregate in a particular calendar year in political donations.
The rules, which appear on the court system’s website, state that a “judge shall prohibit members of the judge’s staff who are the judge’s personal appointees from engaging in the following political activity.”
The second point under that subheading says that prohibited conduct for judicial staff includes:
…contributing, directly or indirectly, money or other valuable consideration in amounts exceeding $500 in the aggregate during any calendar year to all political campaigns for political office, and other partisan political activity including, but not limited to, the purchasing of tickets to political functions, except that this $500 limitation shall not apply to an appointee’s contributions to his or her own campaign.
Where an appointee is a candidate for judicial office, reference also shall be made to appropriate sections of the Election Law.
This year and last year, Greenfield vastly exceeded that $500 threshold.
Greenfield has been Justice Engoron’s principal law clerk for several years and first started in this position in 2019.
In the two most recent years, 2022 and 2023, she violated the ethics rules for judicial staff.
In 2022 alone, Greenfield gave thousands of dollars in donations to Democrats.
The donations are publically available and can be found in New York’s elections database.
The total amount of donations made by Greenfield is several thousand dollars.
Those donations include:
- $200 to the Four Freedoms Democratic Club in New York on May 2, 2022
- $175 to the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club in New York on April 5, 2022—and gave the group another $210 on July 25, 2022.
- $350 to the West Side Democrats, Inc. in New York on June 15, 2022
- $50 more to New Yorkers For Alex Bores on Sept. 8, 2022
- On Oct. 26, 2022, she gave another $50 to the Four Freedoms Democratic Club
- On Sept. 12, 2022, Greenfield gave $100 to the Grand Street Democrats
- On Dec. 2, 2022, Greenfield gave another $100 to Hell’s Kitchen Democrats
- On Nov. 10, 2022, and on Nov. 21, 2022, Greenfield gave $250 each time to Downtown Independent Democrats
- On Sept. 6, 2022, she gave $250 to Village Independent Democrats
- On Dec. 27, 2022, Greenfield gave $500 to the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club
- She gave the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club another $500 spread over two $250 donations back on June 1, 2022, as well
- On March 3, 2022, she gave $50 to Sivin for New York
- On March 10, 2022, Greenfield gave another $100 to Sivin for New York
- On May 15, 2022, she gave another $125 to Sivin for New York
- $25 to the New York County Democratic Committee on Feb. 13, 2022
- On July 17, 2022, she gave the New York County Democratic Committee another $50
In 2022 alone, Greenfield gave $3,335 in political donations to Democrat candidates and causes in New York.
The figure is more than six times the maximum allowed annually for court officials like herself to give.
In 2023, Greenfield has continued to pump money into Democrats.
Those donations include:
- $400 to the Four Freedoms Democratic Club on March 23—and two separate $100 donations to Coda District Leaders on April 6 and May 17 respectively.
- $20 to Friends of Kim on Feb. 6, 2023
- $250 to the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club on May 30, 2023
- On Jan. 26, 2023, Greenfield gave $56 to Harvey For New York
- On July 21, 2023, she gave another $75 to the New York County Democratic Committee.
In 2023 so far, Greenfield has given a total of $1,001 to Democrat candidates and causes.
The figure is more than double the annual amount allowed by the ethics rules.
Meanwhile, in the public court proceedings this month, Engoron has not notified Trump’s legal counsel that he received this complaint about Greenfield’s apparent ethics violations.
Greenfield’s presence at Engoron’s side has been a centerpiece of the case as the trial plays out.
Engoron accused one Trump lawyer of “misogyny” for raising questions about Greenfield, according to The New York Times.
“Justice Arthur Engoron is taking Christopher M. Kise, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, to task for disparaging his law clerk, Allison Greenfield,” the NY Times’s Jonah Bromwich reported from the court.
“The judge says he thinks it may be a problem of misogyny and asks Kise not to mention his court staff again.
“Kate Christobek, another Times reporter, added that Engoron threatened on Thursday to extend the gag order against Trump to his attorneys as well if they kept raising questions about Greenfield.
“Alina Habba, another of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, is now also complaining about Greenfield having improper influence on the judge, talking to him during proceedings,” Bromwich added in another Thursday update.
“Habba says Greenfield’s conduct is a part of the record and the case.
“‘I’m not going to stand by and allow it to happen,’ Habba says, asserting that because she is a woman, she is no misogynist.”
READ MORE: Judge Threatens to Jail Trump for Violating ‘Gag Order’
