The New York judge presiding over the state’s civil fraud case against Donald Trump rejected the former president’s request for a mistrial, calling claims of political bias “nonsensical” and “utterly without merit.”
Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday rejected claims against him and his principal law clerk, who Trump and his defense lawyers have repeatedly complained about. They’ve accused the court of bias because the judge frequently confers with his clerk and creates the impression they are co-judging the case.
“As I have made clear over the course of this trial, my rulings are mine and mine alone,” Engoron said wrote in his ruling. “There is absolutely no ‘co-judging’ at play.” He said such claims are “nonsensical, and in any event, they are a red herring, as my Principal Law Clerk does not make rulings or issue orders — I do.”
The ruling comes at the end of the seventh week of a trial of a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who alleges Trump inflated his assets by as much as $3.6 billion a year for more than a decade. The trial in Manhattan is one of six Trump is facing as he seeks to return to the White House in the 2024 election. He denies wrongdoing in all the cases, claiming they’re part of a “witch hunt.”
In the mistrial motion filed earlier this week, Trump claimed Engoron’s law clerk had exceeded the permissible amount of political donations in a calendar year. But the judge said the clerk hasn’t exceeded the $500 limit under judicial ethics rules, and that Trump’s claims were based on a political editorial written by a critic of James’s suit, not actual evidence.
(Updates with details from ruling.)
