Attorneys for a retired 2024 election pollster and a top Iowa newspaper on Monday scathingly mocked President Donald Trump”s “transparently improper” procedural gamesmanship and asked a federal judge to consider issuing sanctions if his defiance continues.

In the view of defendants the Des Moines Register, media company Gannett, and veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer, Trump is acting like “compliance” with court orders is “optional” and, therefore, he should not be rewarded with the stay of a deadline for filing an amended federal complaint without the inclusion of “illegitimate” current and former state lawmaker “co-plaintiffs” and “without adding ‘new parties, allegations, or claims[.]”

“This is the second time Plaintiff Donald Trump has defied an order from this Court directing him to file an amended complaint removing the allegations he added ‘to defeat the Court’s jurisdiction over the case,'” the filing said. “The first time, after this Court denied Plaintiff’s remand motion and ordered him to file an amended complaint within seven days, he instead filed a motion for stay.”

“This Court promptly denied that motion and ordered Plaintiff to file his revised pleading on July 18th,” the defendants continued. “He’s now pulled the same stunt again.”

As Law&Crime previously reported, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger granted the defendants’ motion to strike the president’s notice of voluntary dismissal from the record because an appeal at that time remained pending at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

After the 8th Circuit formally denied Trump permission to appeal, Trump “renewed” a motion for a stay of a refiling deadline that “rehashes the same rejected arguments as his prior attempt” while simultaneously asking the appellate court to consider withdrawing the mandate that returned the case to the district court, the defendants noted.