The mistrial motion some legal observers were expecting never came. Instead, ethical misconduct allegations came into full bloom in the congresswoman’s letter.
On Nov. 3, Eric Trump once again arrived at 60 Centre Street in downtown Manhattan, a courthouse “Law & Order” viewers would recognize instantly. He was there, of course, not for a stint as an extra, but for his second day of testimony in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against him, his father, his brother Don Jr., and others. And before Eric Trump could retake the witness stand, his dad’s lawyer, Chris Kise, decided to revisit one of his team’s favorite themes: the purportedly partisan bias of Judge Arthur Engoron and his principal law clerk.
But this time, Kise was focused not on how the two interact during the trial but on their conduct outside the courtroom. Alluding to “allegations that I looked at in the news this morning,” Kise insisted there was “at least a plausible basis to have to raise considerations of bias” because of “contributions to partisan political activity” that, in Kise’s description, violate Section 100.5(c)(2) of New York’s Rules of Judicial Conduct.
At that point, Kevin Wallace, the senior lawyer on the attorney general’s team, seemed confused and asked Kise what report he was referencing. Kise responded, with the caveat that he is not the Trump side’s “internet person,” that he believed it was on the far-right site Breitbart.
Indeed, a Breitbart story published a day earlier aired new allegations about Engoron’s principal law clerk, who has been the subject of multiple attacks by Donald Trump and his legal team that led Engoron to impose a gag order on all of them. Specifically, Breitbart alleged, based on a review of New York State campaign finance data, that the law clerk has made contributions to individual candidates, local Democratic clubs, PACs and the New York County Democrats in amounts and at times that would appear to violate the rule Kise cited.
By Monday, the same day Donald Trump testified, Team Trump went further, telling Engoron that as soon as the AG’s team rested, they intended to move for a mistrial based on unspecified issues that Trump’s lawyers represented would be covered by the gag order but did not relate to their usual complaint: the notes Engoron and his clerk have exchanged.
