New York Court Rejects Trump Appeal of Gag Order

The New York Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected former President Donald Trump's appeal of a gag order imposed in his civil fraud trial, which came to a close last week.

The court tossed the challenge because it involved no "substantial constitutional question," according to a Tuesday court filing.

"On the Court's own motion, appeal dismissed, without costs, upon the ground that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved," the court wrote, The Messenger reported. "Motion for a stay dismissed as academic."

Trump's lawyers had argued that his speech was restricted unlawfully by the rule.

A mid-level state appeals court last month denied Trump's bid to overturn a gag order restricting Trump from publicly talking about court staff in the civil fraud trial.

In November, after briefly pausing Justice Arthur Engoron's order, a lower appeals court reinstated it.

Engoron issued the gag order on Oct. 3 after Trump shared on social media a photo of the judge's law clerk posing with U.S. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and falsely called her Schumer's girlfriend.

At the time, a Schumer spokesperson told The Hill that the post was "ridiculous, absurd, and false."

Barred from giving a formal closing argument, Trump still got a brief chance to speak in court at the conclusion of his New York civil trial Thursday, calling the proceedings "a fraud on me" before the judge cut him off.

"We have a situation where I am an innocent man," Trump said. "I'm being persecuted by someone running for office and I think you have to go outside the bounds."

State Attorney General Letitia James said Trump should be permanently barred from New York's real estate industry for "outrageous" fraud, adding that Trump and his company should pay $370 million in penalties for decades of financial fraud.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.

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