Two separate Donald Trump appeals in his hush money case were rejected on Thursday, as New York’s Court of Appeals turned down the former president’s requests to lift a gag order and to delay his sentencing.
The court rejected the appeal in a two-line judgment, noting that “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”
The gag order was put in place to stop Trump criticizing court staff, the jury and family members of the judge and prosecutors.
The Republican presidential nominee, faced trial in New York City on 34 counts of falsifying business records for hush money payments made to former adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
On May 30, a jury convicted Trump on all 34 counts and Judge Juan Merchan is due to sentence him on November 26.
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The Thursday ruling read: “Appeal dismissed without costs, by the court sua sponte, upon the ground that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.
Chief Judge Wilson and Judge Halligan took no part.”
Sua sponte is Latin for “of its own accord.” According to the Legal Information Institute, it is used “to indicate that a court has taken notice of an issue on its own motion, without prompting or suggestion from either party.”
In this case, the court dismissed Trump’s appeal without being asked to do so by prosecutors.
Newsweek sought email comment from the Trump campaign on Friday.
In June, the same court first rejected a Trump appeal to lift the gag order.
During Trump’s trial, Merchan found that he had violated the gag order 10 times by posting comments on social media. He fined him $1,000 for each violation. He also noted that he had been president of the United States and may be again and did not want to have to jail him for gag order violations, but may be left with no option.
Trump suffered a second blow on Thursday when a federal appeals court rejected his attempt to delay the November 26 sentencing.
In a one-page order, three judges on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request to stay sentencing until appellate judges could hear arguments on whether the case should be transferred to a federal court.
Trump requested that the…
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