The judge in Donald Trump’s civil fraud case dismissed his request for a mistrial on Friday, dismissing the former president’s lawyers’ arguments that the proceedings are tainted by political prejudice. Judge Arthur Engoron, according to Trump’s lawyers, injured Trump’s right to a fair trial by making “astonishing departures from ordinary standards of impartiality.”
They noted his decisions against Trump, the judge’s main law clerk’s significant involvement in court, the clerk’s political donations, and what the defense called Engoron’s “appearance of impropriety” in publishing items about the case in his high school alumni magazine.
Engoron concluded on Friday that the accusations were without merit.
“My principal law clerk does not make rulings or issue orders — I do,” Engoron wrote, adding: “I stand by each and every ruling, and they speak for themselves.”
As for the newsletter, “none of this has anything to do with, much less does it interfere with, my presiding fairly, impartially, and professionally over the instant dispute, which I have now been doing for more than three years, and which I intend to do until its…
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