Donald Trump has been fined $10,000 this Wednesday after the New York judge who oversaw his trial for civil fraud ruled that the former president of the United States violated the law of silence a second time.

On October 3, the judge Arthur Engoron banned Trump from disparaging court staff after Trump shared on social media a photo of the judge’s chief clerk posing with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and falsely called her Schumer’s “girlfriend”.

During a break in Wednesday’s trial in the civil lawsuit filed by the New York attorney general, Letitia JamesRegarding Trump’s business practices, Trump told reporters: “This judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who is very partisan sitting next to himperhaps even much more partisan than him.”

Engoron, assuming Trump was referring to his secretary, called the comments a “flagrant” violation of the gag order. The judge imposed the fine after Trump briefly took the stand to answer questions. Engoron’s clerk has been sitting next to the judge during the trial, which is standard practice in a New York state court.

Alina Habba, one of Trump’s lawyers, told Engoron that she saw the employee appear to roll her eyes while Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, testified against his former boss, and that this was “completely inappropriate“.

Engoron rejected a suggestion from another Trump lawyer, Christopher Kise, that the “partisan” person Trump was referring to was Cohen. “The idea that that statement refers to the witness doesn’t make sense to me,” Engoron said. “Don’t do it again or it will be worse“.

On October 20, Engoron fined Trump $5,000 after discovering that he had failed to remove a post disparaging the paralegal, and warned that future transgressions could lead to “much more severe” sanctionsincluding jail.