Judge denies Trump’s mistrial motion in NY fraud case
by Ella Lee - 11/17/23 3:59 PM ET
A New York judge has denied former President Trump’s motion for a mistrial in his civil fraud case, rejecting the claim that the judge and his principal law clerk had “tainted” the trial with bias.
Judge Arthur Engoron issued a scathing rebuke of Trump’s mistrial motion Friday afternoon, describing it as “utterly without merit.”
He defended the political donations of his clerk and his own extrajudicial posts online to a school alumni website that came under fire by the former president’s defense.
“I stand by each and every ruling, and they speak for themselves,” Engoron wrote in the six-page decision.
The judge accused Trump’s counsel of cherry-picking purported evidence of misconduct without showing the full picture. The mistrial motion cited a comment made by Engoron during Trump’s testimony that the judge was “not here to hear what [Donald Trump] has to say,” but excluded his next sentence which contextualized the comment.
“Such argument is disingenuous and made in bad faith, as defendants omitted what I said immediately after that sentence, which is ‘I’m here to hear him answer questions,'” Engoron wrote. “Indeed, those are precisely the roles of the witness and the finder of fact.”
more
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4315430-judge-denies-trumps-mistrial-motion-ny-fraud-case/
