NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — A New York appeals court judge Tuesday rejected former President Donald Trump’s latest bid to delay his hush money criminal trial while he fights a gag order.

Justice Cynthia Kern’s ruling is yet another loss for Trump, who has tried repeatedly to get the trial postponed.

Trump’s lawyers had wanted the April 15 trial delayed until a full panel of appellate court judges could hear arguments on lifting or modifying a gag order that bans him from making public statements about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the hush-money case.

The presumptive Republican nominee’s lawyers argue the gag order is an unconstitutional prior restraint on Trump’s free speech rights while he’s campaigning for president and fighting criminal charges.

The trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, issued the gag order last month at the urging of Manhattan prosecutors, who cited Trump’s “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks” about people involved in his legal cases.

Merchan expanded the gag order last week to prohibit comments about his own family after Trump lashed out on social media at his daughter.

It’s the second of back-to-back days for Trump’s lawyers in the appeals court.

On Monday, Associate Justice Lizbeth González rejected the defense’s request to delay the April 15 trial while Trump seeks to move his case out of heavily Democratic Manhattan.

Trump’s lawyers framed their gag order appeal as a lawsuit against Merchan. In New York, judges can be sued to challenge some decisions under a state law known as Article 78.

Trump has used the tactic before, including against the judge in his civil fraud trial in an unsuccessful last-minute bid to delay that case last fall and again when that judge imposed a gag order on him.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he falsified business records to hide the true nature of payments made in connection with a scheme to suppress damaging stories about him during his 2016 presidential campaign.

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