Pool/Reuters
- Trump's NY fraud trial judge on Thursday declined to recuse himself over a hallway conversation.
- Trump's lawyers had said Judge Arthur Engoron improperly spoke about the case outside the courtroom.
- Engoron says he remains impartial since being ranted at briefly by "a landlord-tenant lawyer."
The Manhattan judge who ordered Donald Trump to pay a nearly $500 million fraud judgment has declined — in no uncertain terms — the former president's demand that he recuse himself from the case over a brief hallway conversation.
A "nothingburger" over an unsolicited "90-second diatribe," the judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron said in declining Thursday to step down or hold a hearing on the matter.