Donald Trump’s lawyers have brought their client’s latest political complaints in the form of a legal motion, seeking a mistrial in the former president’s $250 million civil fraud case in New York.
They claim that Judge Arthur Engoron and his law clerk are biased against Trump and that the gag order Engoron imposed because of Trump’s statements about the clerk, and the enforcement of that order, are themselves proof of bias.
Of course, Trump and his team have been playing up an adversarial posture between him and the judge (and the clerk) throughout the proceeding, setting the stage for a motion like this. So it’s more than a little dramatic where his lawyers wrote in Wednesday’s motion that “only the grant of a mistrial can salvage what is left of the rule of law,” saying nothing of their client’s disregard for the rule of law beyond seeing it as a cudgel to use against his perceived enemies.
Speaking of overly dramatic, when it comes to the gag order and the paltry fines Engoron has levied against Trump despite more than one violation, his lawyers write that the court has acted as a “Star Chamber” and as “judge, jury, and executioner” against Trump. Again, this is in the context of a limited gag order (later extended to Trump’s lawyers) that is easy to abide by. Plus, Engoron literally is a judge, there’s no jury in this case, and no one is being executed here. If anything, Engoron has gone easy on enforcement, fining Trump $10,000 for a second violation after threatening imprisonment upon levying a $5,000 fine for the first violation.
Indeed, my colleague Lisa Rubin, who is covering the trial and wrote about a political precursor to this mistrial motion, has offered that the motion itself may violate the gag order.
But right now, without further clarification, it appears they publicly filed their mistrial motion, brief, and supporting affidavits without such permission—and in a way that likely triggers another violation of the same gag order they claim exemplifies Engoron’s bias. Whether or not Engoron thinks the mistrial motion rises to the level of violating his order — or acts upon it if he does think so — don’t expect him to grant the motion. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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