Former President Donald Trump requested a mistrial on Wednesday in his New York civil fraud trial against his business empire, the Trump Organization.
The motion marks the latest conflict between Trump’s legal team and Judge Arthur Engoron, who issued a gag order against the former president that blocks him from publicly commenting about Engoron’s law clerk. Trump has been fined a total of $15,000 for two violations of the order by his team.
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Engoron also ruled in favor of Democratic state Attorney General Letitia James in a late September opinion ahead of the trial, finding Trump, his two adult sons, and two Trump Organization executives liable for “persistent and repeated” business fraud.
The 30-page filing highlights Engoron, as well as his principal law clerk, saying their conduct has “tainted these proceedings” and that “only the grant of a mistrial can salvage what is left of the rule of law.”
“This Court has also impermissibly exceeded its discretion in granting his Principal Law Clerk unprecedented status and input into these proceedings and restricted the speech of anyone who seeks to comment on this status, input and/or perceived partisan bias,” Trump’s lawyers said in the filing.
Engoron put the gag order in place last month, citing a large swath of threats and harassment that have plagued his office since the trial started in early October.
Trump’s team says the judge has “allowed his Principal Law Clerk to preside on the bench with him to his right-hand side,” and his lawyers included a photograph of Engoron with the clerk seated next to him, which Trump’s counsel cited as evidence that she “is given unprecedented and inappropriate latitude.”
Trump’s frustration over the clerk was most observed when the trial started on Oct. 2 and Engoron became aware of a social media post about the clerk that Trump had shared with his followers.
“Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable and inappropriate,” Engoron said at the time. “I will not allow it under any circumstances.”
Trump was dinged for a violation of the gag order later in the month after Engoron’s office discovered one of Trump’s posts referencing the judge was still online. It was later deleted.
Since then, Trump’s lawyers have kept up the pressure over the role of the clerk, including by highlighting her pattern of passing notes to the judge during the proceedings, which they see as unfair. Engoron has already criticized such claims in court, suggesting actions such as reading notes his clerk passes to him are no different from similar patterns of note-passing by Trump’s defense team.
The motion also contains images of a spreadsheet appearing to show the political donations that Engoron’s principal law clerk made to various liberal and Democratic causes since mid-2022, arguing her donations suggest an apparent bias.
“More troubling than even the fact of these contributions exceeding lawful limits, many (if not all) of these organizations actively support the Attorney General! For example, the president of the Grand Street Democrats published an op-ed in October 2020 proclaiming that ‘Letitia James Serves as Last Line of Defense Against Trump Administration,'” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing.
The New York Code of Judicial Conduct states that judges “shall prohibit members of the judge’s staff” from donating amounts exceeding $500 to all campaigns for political office per year. In 2023 alone, the clerk has donated $1,001 to Democratic causes, according to the attached spreadsheet in the motion. While Trump’s team is suggesting she violated the code, whether her donations while working for Engoron’s office are grounds for a mistrial is unclear.
The expected motion for a mistrial comes as James is seeking to prove Trump inflated the value of his assets by as much as $3.6 billion to obtain better terms from banks and insurers.
Engoron, who will rule on Trump’s motion for a mistrial, has vehemently condemned Trump’s defense team throughout the trial for bringing up his law clerk. The judge suggested at one point that Trump’s attorney Chris Kise was channeling possible misogyny against her.
The mistrial motion could also be intended for review by an appeals court down the line.
James issued a statement through a spokesperson calling the mistrial motion a continued attempt by Trump to delay and distract from the strength of her case.
“Once again, Donald Trump is trying to dismiss the truth and the facts, but the numbers and evidence don’t lie,” the attorney general’s spokesperson said. “Donald Trump is now being held accountable for the years of fraud he committed and the incredible ways he lied to enrich himself and his family.”
The trial is meant to assess James’s remaining and more narrow claims against Trump and the others, as well as to determine penalties. It’s one of six trials Trump is facing as he mounts his campaign for a second term in the Oval Office in the 2024 presidential election.
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The Washington Examiner contacted James’s office for response.
Read the motion here:
