Donald Trump attacked his judge with a conspiracy theory promoted by George Santos. He failed.

Donald Trump tried to attack the judge in his New York trial by using a conspiracy theory he read from disgraced former congressman George Santos. It did not go as planned.

Trump shared a screenshot of an X (formerly Twitter) post from Santos, which was itself a reply to far-right activist Laura Loomer’s suggestion that Judge Arthur Engoron’s son was attending Trump’s trial in New York. Trump is being sued by the state of New York for allegedly lying for decades about his net worth in order to secure more favorable loan terms.

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“It’s unprecedented for a person to have been held liable in defamation to keep doing the defamation.”

Loomer’s post accused Engoron of making “the Trump trial a family affair” and reserving a seat for his son, Ian Engoron, who she accused of “financially benefiting from the Trump Trial via his position at an Democrat activist law firm in New York City and his father’s position as the judge overseeing Trump’s trial in NYC.”

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She posted pictures of a man with a beard who she claimed was Ian Engoron. Her nonsensical and convoluted message accused Arthur Engoron of profiting off of his son’s attendance at the Trump trial but never really explained how that would work.

Santos shared Loomer’s message and said that he told the House Committee on Oversight to investigate.

“Laura’s findings are significant, and I have flagged them for my colleagues on the Oversight Committee to investigate further and determine if there is any misconduct that would result in a monetary benefit to the judge’s son,” Santos wrote.

Trump shared a screenshot of their posts on his own social media platform, Truth Social.

There was one problem with their theory: The man in the pictures wasn’t Ian Engoron. It was New York Post reporter Ben Kochman. Kochman then wrote an article on how Trump, Santos, and Loomer used his picture, titled: “It’s me, Don! Trump keeps falsely tagging Post reporter as fraud trial judge’s son in rants.”

Kochman posted a picture of himself to show that he was the person in the pictures that Trump shared.

This isn’t the first time Trump has attacked someone at this trial. He posted messages to social media in October about Engoron’s top law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who he said was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) “girlfriend.” His only evidence of this was a picture of Greenfield and Schumer at a campaign event.

His messages stayed up even after Judge Engoron issued a gag order banning Trump from attacking Engoron and members of his staff. Trump was ordered to pay $15,000 in fines.

It’s unlikely that the judge will consider Trump’s latest post about his “son” to be a violation of that same order since neither Kochman nor Ian Engoron are members of Arthur Engoron’s staff.