A federal appeals court judge in New York issued a stay on Thursday that temporarily relieves former President Donald Trump of the gag order limiting his First Amendment rights to scrutinize the partisan campaign to undermine and break up the Trump Organization.
“Considering the constitutional and statutory rights at issue, an interim stay is granted,” Judge David Friedman wrote after the emergency hearing on Thursday.
A giddy Judge Arthur Engoron, the presiding authority in the civil fraud trial, first muzzled Trump on Oct. 3.
Engoron used the order to fine Trump and his legal team a total of $15,000 for allegedly violating the gag order twice over a social media post and criticism of the judge’s principal law clerk Allison Greenfield, a leftist partisan with ties to several high-profile “get Trump” Democrats.
Trump’s lawyers not only appealed the gag order — which Trump emphasized “Unconstitutionally prohibited me & my attorneys from talking about important elements of a Fraud case” — but also demanded a mistrial after pointing out the “tangible and overwhelming” bias plaguing the proceedings.
Friedman’s stay holds until the appellate court issues a decision on the Trump team’s appeal.
Trump maintains that New York Attorney General Letitia James and Engoron “worked in COLLUSION to make some assets many times lower in Value than they are” such as lowballing his sprawling Florida mansion Mar-a-Lago by hundreds of millions of dollars.
“By doing this, they ridiculously & wrongfully, without Knowledge, Trial, or Jury (which
