In the end, no one was injured this time. At least physically.
The bomb threat that was made early Thursday at the Great Neck home of Justice Arthur Engoron, the judge presiding over ex-President Donald Trump’s fraud trial in Manhattan, turned out to be unfounded.
Nassau County Police said they responded to the threat at 5:30 a.m. along with the Kensington Police Department. The county’s arson and bomb squad and multiple other units investigated the home and found nothing.
But there did not need to be an actual bomb or for that bomb to off to do actual harm.
The threat came just hours before Engoron was expected to hear closing arguments in a fraud trial in state court in which the judge had already ruled that Trump illegally inflated the value of properties he owns – including Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago in Florida – by billions of dollars in paperwork submitted to banks, lenders and insurance companies.
Engoron is now deciding on a call by state Attorney General Letitia James to fine Trump $370 million and permanently bar him and his two sons from working in the real estate business in New York State.
The unfounded bomb threat – a tactic known as swatting – let Engoron know that at least one person who did not wish him well knew where he lived.
Engoron, his neighbors and law enforcement must now be concerned that someone will come back and follow up on their threat.
It also subjected Engoron and any family members at his residence to potential harm from law enforcement who descend in force in these cases – as they did at Engoron’s home.
In 2017, a swatting call over a video game dispute resulted in the death of an innocent man at his own front door.
A Blank Slate Media reader emailed us to criticize us for disclosing that Engoron lived in Kensington, apparently fearful that someone would use the information to make good on last week’s threat.
The location of the bomb threat was disclosed by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in a press release, at least one other Nassau-based publication had reported the Kensington location and certainly the person who made the false threat knew where Engoron lived.
But we understand our reader’s concern in the current atmosphere that Trump has created.
Did this threat have any impact on how Engoron conducted the day’s proceedings? We think no.
But Engoron did make an unusual decision to allow Trump to add to the closing statements made by his attorneys after the Republican Party’s leading contender for the presidential nomination missed the deadline set by the judge to agree to his requirements for the ex-president to speak.
The requirements were for Trump to stick to the facts of the case, “not try to introduce new evidence, not deliver a campaign speech and not impugn myself, my staff, plaintiff, plaintiff’s staff, or the New York State Court System, none of which is relevant to this case.”
The behavior Engoren was describing is not uncommon when dealing with mobsters, drug dealers and gang leaders. But former presidents of the United States?
Engoron had already imposed a gag order Oct. 3 after Trump posted a derogatory comment about the judge’s law clerk to social media.
The law clerk, Allison Greenfield, began receiving 20-30 derogatory calls per day to her personal cell phone and 30-50 messages per day on social media, LinkedIn and two personal email addresses after Trump’s comment. The gag order was challenged by Trump’s lawyers and later upheld.
When Trump’s attorney asked if Trump could speak, Engoron began questioning Trump again about whether he would follow his instruction, but the former president interrupted and went on a six-minute harangue that violated the judge’s orders.
During his six minutes, Trump once again attacked James and Engoron – as he had throughout the trial. But neither Engoren nor James attempted to interrupt.
There is no question Engoron bent the rules for Trump and treated him differently than he would have treated anyone else.
It is possible that Engoron’s decision to allow Trump to speak was intended to remove an argument in any future appeal. It is also possible that he allowed Trump to speak because he was doing more harm than good especially since Engoron will be the person ruling on the matter.
But what does that do to the principle that we all stand equal under the law?
And he is not the first judge in Trump’s two civil cases and four criminal cases to allow him to say and do things that would get any other defendant punished for contempt of court.
Equally disturbing is that the swatting incident in Great Neck was not unusual.
NBC News reported that on Christmas Day Jack Smith, the special counsel in charge of two federal prosecutions of Trump, was “swatted.” The Washington Post reported last week that Tanya S. Chutkan, the judge presiding over one of those two cases, was also recently swatted.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week warned of a “deeply disturbing spike in threats against those who serve the public.”
Prosecutors have recently brought cases against those accused of threatening FBI agents, federal judges, presidential candidates, members of Congress, members of the military and election workers, Garland said.
“These threats of violence are unacceptable,” he told reporters. “They threaten the fabric of our democracy.”
Sometimes the threats turn into action and the action intimidates public officials.
In the case before Chutkan, Smith has charged Trump with inciting an attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to overturn the 2020 presidential that threatened the lives of elected officials, including then Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and resulted in more than 140 police officers injured. Several died shortly after the attack.
Republican Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential candidate in 2012, said in a book that several colleagues refused to vote for Trump’s second impeachment because they feared for their own safety and that of their spouses and children.
Romney said he hired personal security for himself and his family at a cost of $5,000 a day to guard against threats to their lives.
This should frighten any American who believes in the founding father’s vision of democracy in this country, but it should not surprise us.
Last October, a poll taken by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found 33 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
Some 41 percent of pro-Trump Americans supported the statement
This compares to 22 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats who shared the same view.
There is no mystery where threats, acted on or not, come from.
Trump has repeatedly advocated violence during his political campaigns, going so far as offering to pay the legal fees of rally attendees who beat up people opposing him.
At the Stop the Steal rally he delivered before the attack on Jan. 6, he said “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell you won’t have a country anymore.”
Nassau County Republicans have said little or nothing against Trump’s call for violence before or after Jan. 6. Blakeman was the county Republican Party’s liaison with the Trump campaign.
Republican Congressman George Santos was picked by the party to be its candidate for the 3rd Congressional District after he claimed to have attended the Stop the Steal rally and provided money to the insurrectionists.
In November 2021, Nassau Democrats blasted a march by members of the far-right Proud Boys without a permit down Sunrise Highway and into Rockville Centre where they stormed stores shouting slogans and passing out fliers.
The Proud Boys had already risen to prominence in September 2020 when President Trump was asked about regularly encouraging white supremacist groups. He answered: “Proud Boys Stand back and stand by. Somebody has to do something about Antifa and the left.”
The Proud Boys went on to violently lead the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and their members would later receive some of the stiffest sentences in federal court.
The Nassau GOP’s response to the Proud Boys’ march in Rockville Centre? Silence.
The threat of violence has now been raised again in Nassau County with the swatting incident at Engoron’s Great Neck home.
What more needs to happen before Nassau Republicans raise their voices against Trump’s violent rhetoric?
