{"id":12899,"date":"2023-06-03T03:56:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T08:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=12899"},"modified":"2023-06-03T03:56:44","modified_gmt":"2023-06-03T08:56:44","slug":"donald-trumps-lawyers-ask-judge-to-exit-criminal-case-echoing-claims-of-political-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=12899","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s lawyers ask judge to exit criminal case, echoing claims of political bias"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Within hours of his historic arraignment<\/a> this spring, Donald Trump<\/a> fixed his ire on the judge, complaining that he\u2019s \u201ca Trump-hating judge\u201d with a family full of \u201cTrump haters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, the former president\u2019s lawyers doubled down on that criticism, demanding Judge Juan Manuel Merchan step aside from his New York City criminal case because of what they say is anti-Trump bias and a conflict of interest arising from his daughter\u2019s work for some of Trump\u2019s Democratic rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers allege that Merchan, a respected jurist<\/a> in Manhattan\u2019s criminal court, tipped the scales in two other Trump-related cases by involving himself in plea negotiations for Trump\u2019s longtime finance chief and requiring him to testify against Trump\u2019s company in exchange for a five-month jail sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers, Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche, also asked Merchan to explain three political donations totaling $35 that were made to Democratic causes in his name during the 2020 election cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the New York case, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges relate to hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations that Trump had extramarital sexual encounters. He has denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan did not respond to inquiries from The Associated Press asking him to confirm or deny if he\u2019s the person who made the donations, which include $15 for President Joe Biden\u2019s campaign against Trump, according to federal campaign finance records. Such contributions are typically prohibited under court rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision on recusal is up to Merchan himself, who previously rejected such a request when Trump\u2019s company was on trial. Trump\u2019s lawyers could be also making a play to raise the issue on appeal if he\u2019s convicted. Along with their motion, Trump\u2019s lawyers submitted 42 pages of what that say is evidence of Merchan\u2019s political bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hush-money case is continuing in state court while Trump\u2019s lawyers seek to transfer it<\/a> to federal court, which would also remove Merchan from the judicial equation. A federal judge has scheduled a June 27 hearing on that request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A message seeking comment was left with Merchan. A spokesperson for New York\u2019s state court system, Lucian Chalfen, said that since the case is pending in front of the judge, \u201cit would be inappropriate for any further comment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan has appeared respectful and exceedingly accommodating in his limited interactions with Trump and has refused to issue a gag order, even as the ex-president continued to pillory him, District Attorney Alvin Bragg and others involved the case. At a recent hearing, Merchan said he was \u201cbending over backwards\u201d to make sure he wasn\u2019t limiting Trump from having \u201cevery opportunity possible to advance his candidacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s recusal motion expands on the criticism he\u2019s lobbed at Merchan and his family in statements and on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan\u2019s daughter, Loren, is a political consultant whose firm has worked on campaigns for prominent Democrats including Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, the leading contender for the Republican nomination<\/a> in 2024, could face Biden again as he seeks a return to the White House. He and his allies have seized on Merchan\u2019s political ties in portraying his prosecution as part of a Democrat-led \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris,\u201d Trump said in a speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate, hours after his April 4 arraignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among Trump\u2019s other criticisms, he\u2019s claimed Merchan \u201crailroaded\u201d ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg into a guilty plea last summer and acted \u201cviciously\u201d in presiding over the company\u2019s trial, which ended in a tax fraud conviction last December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan was heavily involved in negotiations that led to Weisselberg\u2019s plea to charges he skirted taxes on perks including a Manhattan apartment and luxury cars. 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 while her husband raked in big money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those cases were preludes to Trump\u2019s historic indictment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s case ended up in Merchan\u2019s courtroom because of a rotation in which judges assigned to oversee grand juries handle any cases that arise from them, according to the court system. Merchan also often handles financial cases and runs Manhattan\u2019s mental health court, where some defendants get a chance to resolve their cases with treatment and supervision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan, 60, emigrated from Colombia as a 6-year-old and grew up in New York City. The first member of his family to go to college, he worked his way through school and went on to earn a law degree from Hofstra University in 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a Manhattan prosecutor and worked in the state attorney general\u2019s office before then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed him as a family court judge in 2006. Three years later, Merchan was assigned to a trial court, which in New York is called the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within hours of his historic arraignment this spring, Donald Trump fixed his ire on the judge, complaining that he\u2019s \u201ca Trump-hating judge\u201d with a family full of \u201cTrump haters.\u201d On Friday, the former president\u2019s lawyers doubled down on that criticism, demanding Judge Juan Manuel Merchan step aside from his New York City criminal case because of what they say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3344,3480,7829,7830,1198],"class_list":["post-12899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-criminal-cases","tag-donald-trump","tag-political-battles","tag-political-persecution","tag-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12901,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899\/revisions\/12901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}