Donald Trump loses challenge to gag order and fines in New York civil fraud case
A New York appeals court rejected former President Donald Trump's challenge to a gag order and $15,000 in fines on Thursday in a high-stakes civil fraud case that threatens an estimated $250 million in damages and Trump's ability to do business in the state.
New York trial Judge Arthur Engoron imposed the speech restrictions after Trump and his lawyers made comments about the judge's principal law clerk, whom they have attacked as a partisan Democrat improperly influencing the case.
Trump's legal team later argued that Engoron imposed the gag, which prohibits public comments on court staff, "in a fit of pique," rather than by carefully balancing Trump's free speech interests against concerns about the administration of justice.
In essence, the appeals panel said in a written decision on Thursday that Trump brought the challenge through improper avenues.
The judges ruled Trump couldn't challenge the gag order on his attorneys because it didn't harm Trump himself. And they said a mechanism the former president was trying to use to get his own gag order quickly overturned – known as a "writ of prohibition" – wasn't appropriate in light of the "small" harm he might face.
"Here, the gravity of potential harm is small, given that the Gag Order is narrow, limited to prohibiting solely statements regarding the court’s staff," the judges said.
The court added that the gag order on Trump as well as the fines he faces could be reviewed later through the ordinary appeals process.
An attorney for Trump didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The New York Attorney General's Office declined to comment.
'Inundated' with threats, judge says
So far, the case has not gone well for Trump. Engoron ruled in September that the former president fraudulently inflated the value of his assets on financial statements, and that his companies will lose their state business certificates. The multi-week trial has focused on other allegedly fraudulent acts, as well as what punishment Trump, his two oldest sons, and other defendants might face.
Trump canceled plans to testify as a defense witness in the case on Sunday, writing in an all-caps social media post that he had "ALREADY TESTIFIED TO EVERYTHING & HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY." The former president had previously testified under a state subpoena, but his lawyers didn't ask him any questions when it was their turn for cross-examination.
The former reality TV star raised against the judge from the witness stand last month: “He called me a fraud, and he didn’t know anything about me!” And he attacked state Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the fraud case against him. “You believed this political hack,” Trump told Engoron.
Engoron's office has "been inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters, and packages," according to the judge's November ruling extending the gag order to attorneys in the case.
"The First Amendment right of defendants and their attorneys to comment on my staff is far and away outweighed by the need to protect them from threats and physical harm," Engoron said.
On Monday, James supplied the state appeals court with a copy of a ruling from a Washington, D.C., federal appeals court last week that allowed a separate gag order on Trump to remain in place.
That court did give the former president some added leeway as he fights a federal indictment alleging he unlawfully interfered with the 2020 presidential election, including allowing him to publicly target Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump loses challenge in New York civil fraud case to gag and fines
