The highest court in the judiciary of New York state has effectively upheld the gag orders — meaning limits on speech — previously issued amid a now concluded trial against Donald Trump and others on allegations from New York state Attorney General Letitia James of fraud.
The restrictions were spurred by comments that Trump made against a clerk for the trial judge, Arthur Engoron. Trump even posted a link to a social media profile evidently belonging to the clerk, clearly teeing up potential problems.
This court’s rejection was brief. “On the Court’s own motion, appeal dismissed, without costs, upon the ground that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved. Motion for a stay dismissed as academic,” they said. The conclusion of trial proceedings (though a subsequent decision from Engoron has yet to be issued) no doubt took a lot of the procedural wind out of the rhetorical sails of any Trump effort to keep pushing against these restrictions. Members of the Trump legal team also were eventually barred from making comments on written communications between the judge and the clerk shared in court.
In complaints about the clerk and other commentary, Trump and close allies tried — characteristically — to characterize the proceedings against him essentially as politically driven. Such complaints have fallen short time and again, though.
As he’s made similar claims while facing a series of criminal prosecutions including two federal cases from Special Counsel Jack Smith, there’s been just no evidence of the direct involvement claimed by Trump of President Joe Biden in formulating the charges. It’s even more of a stretch in his other two criminal cases, which are being handled by state-level authorities — not feds!
Meanwhile, Trump and his team moved on from trial proceedings before Engoron to more problems with another judge. In jury proceedings covering the question of financial penalties against Trump stemming from allegations of defamation made by writer E. Jean Carroll, presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan, who this time was in federal court, repeatedly chastised Trump lawyer Alina Habba, including for trying to push for a delay for the claimed purpose of Trump attending his mother-in-law’s funeral despite the judge’s prior rejection. Trump wasn’t obligated to be at the trial at all, despite trying to force its scheduling to his wishes.
