Gag order obsession is because Trump needs somebody to blame when he loses trial: expert

After a New York appellate judge denied former President Donald Trump's attempt to loosen his gag order Monday, legal analyst Lisa Rubin claimed getting it lifted is so important because he needs somebody to blame.

Regarding the gag order's stipulations, MSNBC's Ali Velshi asked Rubin about Trump and his team's insistence on targeting presiding Judge Arthur Engoron's law clerk, Allison Greenfield, and why her involvement remains relevant.

"These gag orders seem to be about disparaging things that Donald Trump and his team might say about witnesses, court staff, people involved in the case," Velshi said.

"Why is Trump arguing that this is somehow material to Donald Trump's testimony or what he can say on the stand? Why is Judge Engoron's clerk relevant to the outcome of this case?"

Rubin replied, "Judge Engoron's principal law clerk has been a candidate for office in New York. Judge Engoron himself is an elected official, an elected Supreme Court judge here in New York."

“Their argument is that her involvement in partisan politics in New York necessarily makes her a biased actor. And that, coupled with the fact that she sits next to Judge Engoron on his bench and has been repeatedly seen either talking to him in undetectable whispers, passing notings to him — they've accused her of rolling her eyes at them, yelling at them, speaking at them in ways they characterize as disrespectful. According to them, that makes this entire preceding effectively biased."

She continued, "As for why this matters, before the expiration of the trial, team Trump would say they're entitled to make a record prior to the appeal and basically memorialize what they see as these biases while the trial is going on."

“I'm not sure why it is that during the course of this trial he needs to be able to say that. It would seem to me they've already preserved their objection to that on appeal. They can continue to do that once the appeal starts. But to them, they are characterizing this as a matter of poor political speech."

“And the politics of this, I think, says everything. This is a core political speech act, according to them, and he has a right to defend himself against her political bias. But really what this is about, is about appealing to their base and being able to blame what they see is the likely outcome of this trial on someone else, and chiefly the judge's principal law clerk."