Engoron Refuses Recusal from Trump Civil Fraud Case

Once again, Judge Engoron is defying a request made by the Trump legal team.

After a report surfaced that Engoron had an inappropriate discussion about the case with an outside source, Trump’s attorneys filed a motion for Engoron to recuse himself from the case.

As we expected, he has refused, so Trump’s team will now have to appeal the ruling and take this to a higher court.

He Talked

New York lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey told NBC that he had discussed the case with Engoron weeks before the case ended.

He told the outlet that he told Engoron “what I think and why” so the judge could “get it right.”

While he did say that Trump’s name was never mentioned, when he was asked if it was made clear they were, in fact, discussing the Trump case, Bailey responded, “Well, obviously we weren’t talking about the Mets.”

In his ruling denying the recusal motion by Trump’s legal team, Engoron wrote, “I did not initiate, welcome, encourage, engage in, or learn from, much less enjoy, Bailey’s tirade.

“I did not base any part of any of my rulings on it, as Bailey has outlandishly, mistakenly, and defamatorily claimed.”

He continued, “As no grounds for mandatory recusal exist here, it is up to me and my conscience to determine whether this 90-second, unsolicited diatribe about a law with which I was fully familiar and in which I was fully immersed, by a non-party and non-expert who conveyed no facts, in any way affected my adjudication of a dispute over which I had presided for three and a half years, during which time I had already issued several dispositive decisions.

“I hereby definitively state that it did not.”

Whether he sought the advice or if it was given is irrelevant, as Engoron should not have discussed the case with someone else.

I fully expect Trump to appeal this ruling, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court if he must to get some type of relief.

I still believe that at some point during the appeals process, this ruling will either be reversed or significantly reduced.