Former President Donald Trump was fined $10,000 for a comment he made outside the court in his New York business fraud trial, which a judge found violated a limited gag order he imposed.

During a break in the testimony Wednesday, Trump complained that Judge Arthur Engoron, a Democrat, is “a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting along side of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

Trump insisted that he was referring to Michael Cohen, his ex-fixer-turned-foe who was testifying in the trial Wednesday for a second day, but Engoron found that the former president's testimony was not credible and fined him $10,000 payable within 30 days. 

That remark came weeks after a Trump social media post about Engoron's law clerk, who sits beside the judge, prompted Engoron to issue the narrow gag order and tell Trump to take down the post.

That order bars all participants in the case from commenting about any members of the judge's staff. The judge fined Trump $5,000 on Friday after learning that the post had lingered on Trump's campaign website for weeks, though it had been removed from his Truth Social platform.

After learning of Trump's latest comment, Engoron asked "why should there not be severe sanctions for this blatant, dangerous disobeyal of a clear court order.”

In response, defense lawyer Christopher Kise insisted that Trump was talking about Cohen, not the judge's law clerk. Engoron said he would take the matter "under advisement,” and testimony resumed.

When the trial broke for lunch, the judge held a closed-door meeting that included Trump and his lawyers. When Trump emerged, he declined to disclose what was discussed, but told reporters that he had not violated the gag order, saying his earlier comment was not directed at Engoron's clerk. Trump ignored questions about whom he was targeting.

With Trump at the defense table, his lawyer Alina Habba confronted Cohen with comments he had made praising Trump, before turning on him when Cohen's legal problems started in 2018.

Habba tried to suggest that Cohen had angled unsuccessfully for a job in Trump’s White House — Cohen insisted he never sought one — and asked whether he had “significant animosity" toward Trump.

“Do I have animosity toward him? Yes I do,” Cohen replied.

“You have made a career out of publicly attacking President Trump, haven’t you?” Habba asked.

After a long pause, Cohen said, “Yes.”

Cohen worked as Trump’s lawyer and fixer for many years, before Cohen’s 2018 federal prosecution, guilty pleas and prison sentence for tax evasion, making false statements on a bank loan application, lying to Congress and making illegal contributions to Trump’s campaign. The contributions were in the form of payouts to women who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump, who said the women’s stories were false.

Cohen is now a key witness in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil case against Trump. James alleges that Trump habitually exaggerated the value of his real estate holdings on financial documents that helped him get loans and insurance and make deals.

Trump denies any wrongdoing and says James, a Democrat, is targeting the leading Republican presidential candidate in 2024 for partisan reasons.

During his first day of testimony Tuesday, Cohen said he and key executives at Trump's company worked to inflate the estimated values of their employer's holdings so documents given to banks and others would match a net worth that Trump had set “arbitrarily.”

In cross-examining Cohen, Habba emphasized his federal criminal convictions and worked to portray him as a liar, especially after he said Tuesday he had lied when he pleaded guilty to tax evasion and loan application lies. Cohen asserted that he did not really commit those crimes and he sought to portray his conduct as a matter of omissions and failure to correct paperwork.

Habba returned to those themes Wednesday, underscoring that Cohen had admitted in open court to lying under oath in a federal courthouse next door.

Outside court, Trump said the trial was “very unfair” and a “pure political witch hunt.” Nonetheless, he said, “We’re happy with the way it’s going.”

“We have the facts on our side,” Trump said. He's expected to testify later in the trial but meanwhile has voluntarily attended several days of the proceedings.

Cohen is also expected to be an important prosecution witness in a criminal trial scheduled for next spring in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records. That case is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump faces in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington.

Outside the courtroom Wednesday, Trump called Cohen “a totally discredited witness.”

“He’s proven to be a liar,” the former president said. “That’s been proven very loudly, clearly. You see a felon, a convicted felon, for lying. Went to jail for lying.”

Trump then falsely claimed Cohen was the state’s only witness.

He added that his attorneys have proven that the value estimates of his company’s holdings are “much higher than they ever imagined” and that a disclaimer on the financial disclosures advised potential lenders to do their own due diligence. 

Trump also again complained that the case is not being tried before a jury and called the judge partisan.

Cohen worked as Trump's lawyer and fixer for many years, before Cohen's 2018 prosecution, guilty pleas and prison term for offenses that also included lying to Congress and making illegal contributions to Trump's campaign, in the form of payouts to women who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump.

Trump said the women's stories were false. Cohen has said he orchestrated payments to the women at Trump's direction.

Since his legal problems started in 2018, Cohen has been a Trump foe. The two men had not been in a room together in five years until Tuesday.

Cohen called it a "heck of a reunion."

After Tuesday's court session, Trump dismissed Cohen as a "disgraced felon."

Cohen is also expected to be an important prosecution witness in a criminal trial scheduled for next spring in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records. That case is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump faces in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington.