New York — Donald Trump on his latest attempt to appoint a new judge in his New York criminal bribery-for-money case, as he heads toward a major ruling and possible sentencing next month.
In a decision released Wednesday, Judge Juan M. Merchan declined to step in and said Trump’s lawsuit was a rehash “full of errors and baseless claims” about his ability to stay or -biased
This is the third time that Merchan has rejected a request of this nature from the lawyers of the former president and the current Republican candidate. They allege the judge has a conflict of interest because his daughter works as a political consultant for prominent Democrats, including Kamala Harris when she sought the nomination. the Democrats’ president in 2020. Harris is now the party’s nominee against Trump.
The judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, met Harris occasionally in 2019, but never developed a “personal relationship” with her, consulting firm founder Mike Nellis told the chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee , Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. in Tuesday’s letter. The firm, Authentic Campaigns Inc., has not worked for the Harris campaign, President Joe Biden’s now-defunct re-election bid, or for the Democratic National Committee in a cycle 2024 election, Nellis said.
A state court ethics panel said last year that Merchan could continue as a judge in the Trump case. The panel wrote that the independent political activities of a family member “are not a reasonable basis for questioning the judge’s impartiality.”
Merchan, a state court judge in Manhattan, admitted last year that he made several small donations to Democratic causes during the 2020 campaign, including $15 to Biden. But Merchan has repeatedly said he is confident he can handle the Trump case fairly and impartially. In his ruling, Merchan wrote that he will continue to base his decisions “on the evidence and the law, without fear or favor, leaving undue influence.” “
“With these basic principles in mind, this Court now reiterates for the third time what should already be clear: ins and outs do not create a conflict,” Merchan wrote in his three-page conclusion. “Therefore, there is no need, much less a denial.”
But now that Harris is Trump’s opponent, Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, said in a letter to the judge last month that the defense’s concerns have become “even more concrete.”
Prosecutors called the charges “a brazen and frivolous attempt to reframe the case.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, citing Merchan’s contribution to Biden and Loren Merchan’s consulting work, criticized him as a “highly controversial judge” who “should have recused himself from this case a long time ago.”
Merchan “has proven that he is biased against President Trump and looking not only to the interests of Democratic partisans, but also to the obvious financial interests of a close family member,” Cheung said.
Trump criticized Merhan on his Truth Social platform for holding him under a partial gag order, an issue that was not part of the denial decision. Earlier this month, a state appeals court upheld the gag order, which prohibits Trump from making public comments about the prosecution team, court staff or their families, Merchan’s daughter among them.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.
In May, Trump was found guilty of falsifying his company’s records to conceal a 2016 contract to pay adult film actress Stormy Daniels without disclosing her -sexually assaulted him in 2006. voters from hearing stupid stories about him in his first campaign.
Trump says all the stories were false, that the records were not business, and that the case was a political stunt aimed at damaging his current campaign. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a Democrat.
Trump has promised to plead, but that can’t happen until he is sentenced.
At the same time, his lawyers have taken other steps to try to postpone the case. In addition to the motion to dismiss, they have asked Merchan to reverse the decision and dismiss the case because of the US Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision in July.
That ruling bars prosecution of former presidents for official acts and limits prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial acts were illegal. Trump’s lawyers argue that, as a result of the ruling, jurors in the hush money case should not have heard evidence such as testimony from former White House staffers describing how that the president at the time accepted the news coverage of the deal with Daniels.
Merchan has said he will rule on the immunity request on Sept. 16 and set a Sept. 18 hearing for “imposition of sentence or other proceedings as appropriate.”
Jordan, the chairman of the House committee, sent a letter to Loren Merchan on August 1 asking her to turn over any documents related to the Harris and Biden campaigns, any conversations she or her company may have had about Trump’s allegations for money for silence and any conversion. .
2024-08-14 18:32:08
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