Trump lawyers demand judge in New York hush-money case step aside
Lawyers for Donald Trump have demanded the judge in the former president’s New York criminal trial, Juan Manuel Merchan, step aside because of what they say is bias and a conflict of interest arising from his daughter’s work for leading Democrats.
In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to the 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, arising from his $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claimed an affair he denies, shortly before the 2016 election.
After his arraignment, Trump complained that Merchan was “a Trump-hating judge” from a family of “Trump haters”.
On Friday, lawyers for Trump alleged that Merchan, a respected jurist in Manhattan criminal court, tipped the scales in two other cases by involving himself in plea negotiations for Trump’s longtime finance chief and requiring him to testify against Trump’s company in exchange for a five-month sentence.
Trump’s lawyers, Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche, also asked Merchan to explain three donations totaling $35 made to Democratic causes in his name in 2020.
Merchan did not respond to inquiries about the donations, which include $15 for Joe Biden’s campaign against Trump, according to federal records. Such contributions are typically prohibited under court rules.
Trump’s criminal case is “historic and it is important that the people of the state of New York and this nation have confidence that the jurist who presides over it is impartial”, Trump’s lawyers wrote in a motion for recusal.
Merchan rejected such a request when Trump’s company was on trial. Trump’s lawyers could be also making a play to raise the issue on appeal. They also submitted 42 pages of what that say is evidence of Merchan’s bias.
The hush-money case continues in state court while Trump’s lawyers seek to transfer it to federal court, which would remove Merchan. A federal judge has scheduled a 27 June hearing.
Merchan has appeared respectful and accommodating in limited interactions with Trump, refusing to issue a gag order even as the ex-president pilloried him, the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, and others.
At a recent hearing, Merchan said he was “bending over backwards” to make sure he wasn’t stopping Trump having “every opportunity possible to advance his candidacy” for the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump’s recusal motion expands on previous criticism of Merchan.
Merchan’s daughter, Loren, is a political consultant whose firm has worked for prominent Democrats including Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Trump could face Biden again at the polls next year. He and his allies claim a “witch-hunt” against him.
“I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris,” Trump said, hours after his April arraignment.
Trump has also claimed Merchan “railroaded” the former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg into a guilty plea and acted “viciously” in presiding over the company’s trial, which ended in a tax fraud conviction last December.
Merchan was involved in negotiations leading to Weisselberg’s plea to charges he skirted taxes. Merchan said he wished he could impose a tougher penalty after hearing Weisselberg testify, particularly when he spoke about his wife getting $6,000 for a no-show job to qualify for social security benefits.
Those cases were preludes to Trump’s historic indictment. Trump ended up in Merchan’s courtroom because of a rotation in which judges assigned to oversee grand juries handle cases arising. Merchan often handles financial cases.
Now 60, Merchan came to the US from Colombia as a six-year-old and grew up in New York City. The first member of his family to go to college, he worked through school and earned a law degree from Hofstra University.
He was a Manhattan prosecutor and worked in the state attorney general’s office before becoming a family court judge in 2006. Three years later, Merchan was assigned to the state supreme court.
Source: The Guardian US
