Trump lost his battle to challenge a gag order imposed on him by Judge Engoron in the civil trial brought by the hack New York AG Letitia James.

But it wasn’t a loss on the merits but rather on process and procedure.

Here’s more from the AP:

A New York appeals court has again upheld a gag order that bars Donald Trump from commenting about court personnel in his civil fraud trial, ruling Thursday that the former president’s lawyers used the wrong legal mechanism to fight the restriction.

A four-judge panel in the state’s mid-level appellate court ruled Thursday that Trump’s lawyers erred by suing trial Judge Arthur Engoron, who imposed the gag order in October after Trump disparaged his law clerk.

Instead, the appellate judges wrote, Trump’s lawyers should’ve followed the normal appeals process by asking Engoron to reverse the gag order and then, if denied, fighting that decision in a higher court.

Trump lawyer Christopher Kise said the decision denies his client “the only path available to expedited relief and places his fundamental constitutional rights in a procedural purgatory.”

It sounds like the Appellate court is telling them they could have another go at nixing this gag order. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.