A judge issued a gag order against former President Donald Trump after Trump posted a photo of the judge's clerk and baselessly described her as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) “girlfriend.” Fox News hosts Jesse Watters and Jeanine Pirro responded by insinuating that it might be true.

On Monday, the trial began in New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against Trump, his adult sons, their companies, and other senior Trump Organization executives. At the courthouse, Trump lashed out at James, whose suit accused the defendants of fraudulently inflating the value of assets, and New York Judge Arthur Engoron, who ruled in her favor last week. 

Trump then turned to a new target on Tuesday: Allison Greenfield, Engoron’s principal law clerk. On his Truth Social website, the former president posted a photo of Greenfield posing with Schumer, sourced from a paid X account with fewer than 200 followers. The leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination commented: “Schumer’s girlfriend, Alison R. Greenfield, is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately!!” Trump added a link to an Instagram account for Greenfield’s campaign for a judgeship in Manhattan civil court. Trump’s campaign then distributed the post in an email blast.

Engoron criticized Trump in court for publishing “a disparaging, untrue and personally identifying post about a member of my staff” and issued a gag order prohibiting parties from “posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any of my staff.” Trump subsequently deleted the post, suggesting that either he or someone close to him recognized he had gone too far.

But on Fox that night, some of Trump’s most fervent supporters doubled down on his attack, suggesting that the former president’s assertion that Greenfield is Schumer’s “girlfriend” — apparently made solely on the basis that a photo of the two of them together exists — may be true.

“He just hit Trump with a gag order because his clerk was in a photo with Chuck Schumer,” Watters said of Engoron on his show Tuesday. “Trump said this was Schumer's girlfriend. And now Trump's not allowed to say anything about anybody in the court.”

Watters then asked Pirro, “Is that fair play?”

“You know what I think is the most interesting about that, that Chuck Schumer didn’t answer the question, did he, Jesse?” Pirro responded with a grin. “And I’ll leave it at that.”

“Okay. We don’t know if he’s dating the woman or not,” Watters replied.

Pirro and Watters both have long histories at Fox of promoting baseless conspiracy theories.

Even Fox host Sean Hannity, who has spent the last six years functioning as a Trump political operative who also happens to have a prime-time show, wasn’t willing to go that far. Instead, he criticized the gag order while carefully hiding from his viewers the reason why it was issued.

“The judge also issued a gag order against verbal attacks against court staff,” Hannity said while reciting a litany of attacks on Engoran.