🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Donald Trump's attempt to have his gag order in his New York civil fraud trial lifted has been condemned by a legal expert.
Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann said that it is "almost unbelievable" that the former president sought to have the gag order imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron removed in the first place, seeing that it is only in place to stop Trump from attacking court staff.
On Thursday, a New York appeals court rejected Trump's attempt to lift the gag order after proceedings ended in the civil trial where the former president is accused of filing fraudulent financial statements inflating the value of his properties. In its ruling, the court noted that "the gravity of potential harm is small," given that the gag order is narrow and only relates to statements regarding those working at the court.
Engoron has twice fined Trump a total of $15,000 for violating the gag order after attacking the judge's law clerk, Alison Greenfield, in public statements outside the court and in social media posts. Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has frequently said the gag order violates his First Amendment rights amid his latest White House bid.
Speaking to MSNBC's Jen Psaki, Weissmann said that not having the gag order lifted is another loss for Trump in the civil trial and that the former president's team "went down the wrong route" in trying to have it removed.
Weissmann said that Trump's legal team tried to sue Engoron under an "arcane" state law, Article 78, which allows lawsuits to be filed against some judicial decisions.
"Basically, the court said it's not really meritorious, but also you should have just done this as part of your normal appeal. That can't be brought by suing the judge," Weissmann said.
"They also pointed out just how limited the gag order is. It's almost unbelievable because you can't find a lot of precedent for something like this. Who in their right mind thinks, 'Oh, you know what I want to do? Attack the staff of the court.' It just isn't done," he added. "Usually, the case law is more about real speech. So the kind of thing that we have seen in the D.C. criminal case, where he also lost."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's legal team via email for comment.
Chris Kise, a lawyer for the former president in the civil trial, cited the "unconstitutional" gag order as a reason why Trump did not return to the New York court to testify for the second time as scheduled on December 11.
"The Attorney General [Letitia James] continues her rabid and unreasonable pursuit of President Trump, obviously intent on driving profitable businesses out of New York," Kise said in a statement. "Under such circumstances, there is no valid reason for President Trump to testify further in this case."
The civil trial is set to resume in January with closing arguments. Engoron has already ruled that Trump did commit fraud while filing his financial statements, with the judge now set to determine the size of the penalty against Trump and his real estate company.
A decision is not expected until late January or early February.
fairness meter
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more