Arthur Engoron

Former President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social account on Wednesday to rage against the civil fraud judgment made against him earlier this year, which put him on the hook for over $450 million in damages and limited his ability to operate in New York.

His complaint arrived days after Trump was convicted in a New York City courtroom on 34 counts of falsifying business records — the first time a former president has been charged with a felony.

"I built a Magnificent Business, which helped rebuild New York City and State, with Amazing, Unparalleled, Historic Properties and tons of CASH, which Crooked Joe Biden and his Prosecutors are trying to wrongfully and illegally take away from me," wrote Trump. ...

Donald Trump has already given New York Justice Juan Merchan ample reason to sentence him to prison for falsifying business records, a columnist wrote Tuesday.

Each of the 34 counts he's been convicted of carries a maximum four-year sentence, although they would run concurrently. Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin argued that many convictions for Class E felonies do result in prison time — and she said Trump's "conduct and character" should be enough to put him behind bars in this case.

"It is not 'simply' that Trump has multiple civil judgments against him (e.g., sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, inflating his property values and misusing charitable funds) or that he spearheaded a violent insurrection to overturn an election or even that his conduct resulted in multiple contempt citations in Merchan’s and Justice Arthur Engoron’s courtrooms," Rubin wrote. ...

Rep. Elise Stefanik's attack on the New York civil court judge who held former President Donald Trump liable for over $450 million seems to have died with a whimper, according to a new report.

Justice Arthur F. Engoron and law clerk Allison Greenfield were both cleared by a state commission of allegations that they exhibited "inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance," according to a new report from the Daily Beast.

The Beast also reports that news of the ruling came as a surprise to Stefanik (R-NY)....

Former President Donald Trump used a "Happy Memorial Day" message to attack judges and other "human scum" who are working on the legal cases against him.

Trump shared his thoughts on the holiday in a message posted on his Truth Social platform on Monday.

"Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn't count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for 'DEFAMATION,'" he wrote, referring to writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation cases....

Former President Donald Trump has been subjected to limited gag orders in a variety of criminal and civil cases, from Justice Juan Merchan in the hush money trial to Judge Tanya Chutkan in special counsel Jack Smith's election interference case and Justice Arthur Engoron in New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud lawsuit.

However, there is no formal gag order in Smith's Mar-a-Lago documents case, which has been delayed indefinitely by Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee.

Smith last week requested from Cannon a partial gag order in that case, inspiring an angry rant from Trump on his Truth Social platform....

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is stepping up her attacks on New York Judge Juan Merchan, the jurist overseeing former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan, with a formal ethics complaint alleging a conflict of interest.

Stefanik, a close Trump ally and the chair of the House Republican Conference, has made public calls for Merchan to recuse himself from the case, in which Trump stands accused of falsifying business records to conceal hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

In a statement to Axios, Stefanik said that "Acting Judge [Juan] Merchan is in clear violation of section 100.3(E)(1)(d)(iii) of the Rules of Judicial Conduct for the New York State Unified Court System as his family has enriched itself through anti-Trump fundraising mentioning this case directly," and that a Trump acquittal would be "detrimental to Democrats, including clients of Judge Merchan's daughter."...

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) suggested over the weekend that a Trump administration official may have quietly contacted a federal appeals judge to stall a contempt inquiry, and the legal analyst interviewing him declared that if so, “people are going to jail.”

In a clip flagged by political video aggregator Acyn Torabi from the Legal AF podcast, Whitehouse laid out a hypothetical involving D.C. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee.

“If some MAGA official communicated to Judge Rao or her chambers and that resulted in the administrative stay that held the door open and kept the facts from the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation and stalled investigation into misconduct by the DOJ,” Whitehouse began, “ask any judge how big a deal that is.”...

President Donald Trump cut off reporters and walked away after they repeatedly demanded evidence for his claim of widespread mail-in voting fraud in California.

Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House on Monday as he prepared to board Marine One for campaign events.

The midterm elections are less than a month away, on Nov. 3....

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) bragged about a road salt win at a Maine Senate debate, and her challenger's comeback had observers cheering.

On Tuesday, Collins faced Democratic challenger Troy Jackson in a debate weeks before the midterms. Asked what she would do about President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, Collins pointed to a specific victory.

"I was successful at getting road salt removed from the tariff list," Collins said. Jackson responded by pouncing on the answer....