- Allison Greenfield, the principal law clerk in Trump's NY fraud case, is hoping to be elected judge.
- She's received hate mail and threats since Trump called her a "co-judge" who's "running this case."
Former President Donald Trump has attacked her as a biased "co-judge" — claiming she secretly runs the show at his New York civil fraud trial — but now the principal law clerk Allison Greenfield is well on her way to becoming a judge in her own right.
Greenfield is running to be a civil justice in the state Supreme Court in Manhattan, just like Arthur Engoron, the fraud-trial judge she so famously clerks for and from whom Trump is awaiting what could be a corporation-crippling verdict.
Last week, Greenfield cleared the biggest hurdle to the Manhattan civil judgeship, when local Democratic Party leaders rated her "most highly qualified."
The panel has spoken! Announcing the results of the 2024 Civil Court Independent Judicial Screening Panel:https://t.co/VidKXtgW9R pic.twitter.com/BptVcwHY3K
— Manhattan Democrats (@ManhattanDems) February 2, 2024
The next big step happens on Monday. That's when Democratic district leaders are expected to nominate Greenfield as the unopposed Democratic candidate for the judgeship on the November ballot.
She appears to have backing in high places. The borough's top Democrat, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, touted her qualification success on Threads.
"The trial clerk in Trump's civil fraud trial, Allison Greenfield, has been viciously targeted by the MAGA crowd with vile rhetoric and death threats," Levine wrote. "Plot twist: Now she has taken a major step towards becoming a civil court judge herself."
Last week's screening-panel success was likewise enthusiastically welcomed.
"Greenfield drew the biggest round of applause" in the room when the New York County Democratic Committee announced the names of all 10 candidates who qualified for judgeships throughout Manhattan, Our Town reported of the Thursday vote.
The vote to qualify Greenfield was first reported by Law360, which noted that the city's Democratic Party machine effectively selected the judicial candidates who would be on the party's ballot lines in each borough.
Democratic candidates for judgeships often run unopposed in this city of few Republicans. Judges serve 14-year terms and then must seek reelection.
High profile in a high-stakes case
Greenfield and Engoron have sat side by side, as clerk and judge, for more than two years of hearing and trial dates, as New York officials and Trump have warred over the fraud case, where a verdict is expected in the next two weeks.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has alleged Trump fraudulently inflated his wealth by as much as $3.6 billion a year in a decade's worth of annual net-worth statements he used to win $168 million in loan-interest savings.
Trump has countered that no fraud was committed and that his valuations were conservatively low. Lawyers for his codefendants in the lawsuit — the Trump Organization, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his longtime company executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney — have also denied wrongdoing.
Engoron has yet to determine a final penalty but has so far sided with the attorney general, finding that even pretrial there was ample proof of billions of dollars in fraudulent annual valuations.
Greenfield has been a visibly active participant in the case, often conferring with the judge during public proceedings.
"When the judge speaks, you have to stop speaking," Greenfield told Trump's attorney Alina Habba during a 2022 pretrial hearing.
Targeted by name
Trump is on the losing side of their collaboration on so many orders, rulings, and decisions that early in the trial, he began targeting the clerk by name in spoken and online attacks.
His earliest attack, a Truth Social post from just one day after opening statements, falsely called her the "girlfriend" of Chuck Schumer, the US Senate majority leader and a longtime New York Democratic power broker.
The October 3 post claimed without evidence that Greenfield was "running this case against me." It included the clerk's name, photograph, and social-media link.
In response, Engoron issued a gag order barring Trump from attacking anyone on his legal staff.
Twice more in October, Engoron sanctioned Trump for violating the gag order — the first time by failing to remove the Truth Social post from his campaign website, and the second time for calling the clerk "very partisan" in remarks to reporters — resulting in a total of $15,000 in fines.
"In the current overheated climate, incendiary untruths can, and in some cases already has, led to serious physical harm and worse," Engoron said after Trump's first gag violation.
The lawyers were gagged, too
Engoron similarly gagged Trump's attorneys, barring them, too, from making statements about his legal staff after they joined their client in attacking Greenfield.
In unsuccessfully fighting both gags, the lawyers shared their client's ire over the outspoken principal law clerk.
Habba, in particular, has singled her out, complaining to the judge on a trial date in October about "the treatment that I've received from Ms. Greenfield from the bench."
"It is inappropriate," Habba said, facing both Engoron and Greenfield, who she said had rolled her eyes during her cross-examination of Michael Cohen.
"I do not like having eyes rolled," Habba said. "I do not like being yelled at by law clerks who did not earn the robe, and I think this is completely inappropriate."
Greenfield is fair game for comment because "she has voluntarily undertaken to co-judge one of the highest-profile cases in American history," they argued in challenging the gag.
"It is apparent to anyone attending the trial or reading contemporaneous press coverage that the Principal Law Clerk plays a visible and prominent role in the trial, as she sits immediately adjacent to Justice Engoron on the bench," Trump lawyers wrote.
"Justice Engoron consults with her on almost every ruling, and they pass contemporaneous notes," they wrote.
The gag and sanctions have been unable to stem the deluge of antisemitic and threatening emails and phone calls that Greenfield and the judge have faced.
A transcript of the threats totaled 275 single-spaced pages, according to an affidavit filed by the court system in support of the gag order.
Greenfield ran for the same judgeship without success in 2022. She declined to comment when contacted by Business Insider.