The danger surrounding Donald Trump’s bank fraud trial in New York escalated just hours before its final hearing on Thursday, when a bomb threat was made at the home of the judge overseeing the case, according to a reliable source with knowledge of the situation.
The trial was already marred with the violence that has become synonymous with the MAGA movement, as Trumpists flooded the courthouse with death threats aimed at the judge and his law clerk, Allison Greenfield.
But that took a personal turn this morning, when someone threatened to blow up Justice Arthur F. Engoron’s house on Long Island, this source said.
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According to a person briefed on the matter, more than half a dozen police cars and a bomb squad rushed to his home Thursday morning. The move was perceived as a blatant attempt to delay the trial’s closing arguments, which promised to be a dramatic finish to a case that threatens to destroy the former president’s real estate empire on the grounds that he committed bank fraud for more than a decade.
When contacted about the matter by The Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the Nassau County Police Department said that an “active investigation” is underway but would not confirm what the investigation is for.
The incident comes the morning after Trump’s latest Truth Social screed against Engoron. The former president described him as a “TRUMP HATING JUDGE,” further decrying Engoron’s refusal to allow Trump to make his own closing argument in the case. “MEAN & NASTY,” Trump wrote.
Over the past three months, New York Attorney General Letitia James has laid out the way Trump routinely faked personal financial statements by inflating the value of his properties to acquire bank loans and insurance policies. Trump already lost the bulk of the case before it started, and the AG has spent the entirety of the trial proving the extent of his lies.