'Very bad panel for Trump': Legal experts say his gag order appeal will be rejected

Donald Trump saw a legal victory on Friday when an appeals court temporarily stayed the gag order put on him in the criminal D.C. elections case, but that win will be short-lived, according to legal experts who say they expect the gag order to be reinstated on appeal.

Trump has been fined multiple times for violating a gag order in his New York civil fraud case, and that order was expanded Friday to include the former president's attorneys, who continued to accuse the judge's law clerk of partisanship. The order being stayed is a separate one, put into place by Judge Tanya Chutkan in the criminal elections action.

It was reported on Friday that the gag order would be temporarily stayed while the appeals panel considers next steps.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

But it was soon pointed out that Trump is hardly in friendly territory.

"Very strong panel for Smith. Very bad panel for Trump," former prosecutor Harry Litman said on Friday. He's referring to the fact that the order was signed by Obama-appointed judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard and Biden-appointed Judge Bradley Garcia.

Litman later added:

"Headline here is the makeup of the panel -- very favorable for DOJ, very unfavorable for Trump. An administrative stay of 17 days gives Trump plenty of time to do mischief, but it doesn't suggest that the panel is leaning his way or anything like that."

Fellow former prosecutor Joyce Vance said she predicted this turn of events.

"As predicted in my newsletter, the court of appeals granted Trump an admin stay of the DC gag order while it considers whether to impose one while the appeal progresses," she wrote on Friday. "I still expect the gag order to be upheld in its merits."

In her newsletter, Vance said, "The appeals court may well enter an administrative stay" but that "there is little reason to grant a longer stay."

Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal also said the development is "not a big thing" in an appearance on MSNBC's Deadline: White House.

"This is not a big thing. It's an administrative stay. This is not Trump winning. All the court is saying we need time to evaluate what we need to do here. While we're reading the papers, we're freezing the status quo, freezing everything in place. Not giving the gag order legal effect for this moment. The court says, quote, this should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of Trump's motion to relieve the gag order. The court set oral argument for November 20th. It's possible we have to wait until then before the gag order is put back in place. I suspect on November 20th that gag order is going back into effect because the number one witness for why Donald Trump's motion should fail is a guy named Donald Trump."

Watch Katyal's interview below or click the link.