Appeals court upholds gag order and refuses to give back Trump’s fines

One of the most defining things about the end of 2023 may be that a headline simply saying “Appeals court rules against Donald Trump” would only generate questions about which court, which case, and which motion. Saying that the ruling had to do with a gag order wouldn’t do much to narrow the scope. Even saying that the ruling came from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York wouldn’t be completely definitive since Trump is facing a second defamation suit from writer E. Jeanne Carroll, a trial to determine how much he will have to pay for giving fraudulent valuations to his properties, and 34 felony counts for falsifying business records. That’s all in New York.

In this case, the ruling handed down Thursday was about a gag order. It was in New York. And it has to do with the potentially $250 million fraud trial that took place in the courtroom of Judge Arthur Engoron.

Testimony in that case officially ended on Wednesday, but just because no one is still talking in the courtroom doesn’t mean the danger of Trump stirring hatred toward the court staff has ended. On Thursday, the appeals court upheld the gag order that Engoron first issued on Oct. 3. However, the bulk of the order is devoted to something else: schooling Trump’s attorneys on just how many ways they went wrong when they filed their appeal.