Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of House GOP leadership, has filed new documents to her judicial ethics complaint from last week against the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial in New York.
In a letter Friday, the New York lawmaker added to her complaint by attaching the mistrial motion filed by Trump's attorneys accusing Judge Arthur Engoron of bias. The judge dismissed the mistrial bid on Friday afternoon.
The 30-page motion filed by Trump on Wednesday was “wrongly denied” by Engoron, Stefanik said in Friday's letter. Her original complaint accused the judge of exhibiting “clear judicial bias” against the former president, and called on him to recuse himself.
The complaint argued that Engoron had illegally infringed on Trump’s protected political speech and that he violated political contribution rules by making donations to Democrats as recently as 2018.
In a statement to NBC News, Stefanik said on Friday that the mistrial motion adds “examples of even more of his egregious misconduct” by Engoron to the complaint filed with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
“A week ago, I filed an ethics complaint against Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron for his partisan antics, bias, and railroading of President Trump,” Stefanik said. “After my complaint, a New York appellate court smacked down Judge Engoron for his blatantly unconstitutional gag order. Today, I’m supplementing my ethics complaint against Judge Engoron with examples of even more of his egregious misconduct after he just wrongly dismissed President Trump’s motion for a mistrial.”
In shooting down Trump’s bid for a mistrial, Engoron called the former president's arguments “utterly without merit.”
Engoron is presiding over a bench trial in the $250 million lawsuit, meaning he will issue a verdict and determine any resulting penalties. The case stems from a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James last year that accuses Trump of inflating asset values for financial gain. He has denied wrongdoing.