Left: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg walks in the hallway outside a courtroom where former President Donald Trump is attending a hearing in his criminal case on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star in New York, Monday, March 25, 2024. (Brendan McDermid/Pool Photo via AP)/Right: Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference on Monday, March 25, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Former President Donald Trump was allowed to file a brief outlining the entirety of a secondary effort to force the removal of the judge overseeing his New York City hush-money case.
In a 37-page filing made public late Friday, Trump’s attorneys argue New York Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan “must recuse” himself “as a matter of constitutional due process” because of his daughter’s work as a Democratic Party political consultant.
That role atop Authentic Campaigns has created “an actual conflict and an unacceptable appearance of impropriety,” which requires the judge to take himself off the high-profile case, Trump argues.
“Your Honor’s daughter, Loren Merchan, has a direct financial interest in these proceedings by virtue of her ownership stake and leadership role at Authentic,” the April 3 filing reads. “At least six of Authentic’s clients used fundraising solicitations that referenced this case around the time of the Indictment, President Trump’s arraignment, or following the Court’s denial of President Trump’s recusal motion.”
The new recusal effort is largely a reprise of a 2023 attempt to have Justice Merchan tossed from the case over his daughter’s work.
In May 2023, an Empire State court ethics panel found Merchan’s “impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned” because of his daughter’s “business and/or political activities” and that he was “not ethically required to disclose them.”
The judge issued his own ruling in August 2023, finding that “recusal would not be in the public interest” and that he was “certain in [his] ability to be fair and impartial.”
Trump previously previewed his relaunched recusal arguments in a letter responding to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s request for the gag order expansion. Bragg went on to argue against allowing the defense an opportunity to formally ask for recusal again.
The judge decided to allow a briefing on the issue.
The 45th president’s attorneys had to seek leave from Merchan to challenge the judge’s authority to oversee the case due to an earlier court ruling intended to tamp down on the number of docket entries.
In that order, Merchan expressed disdain for defense efforts to increasingly delay the proceedings. In turn, he instructed both the defense and the state to file a one-page letter explaining why they needed to file any given motion before filing any additional motions.
Trump’s latest motion latches onto the court’s earlier findings that the allegations were both “remote” and “speculative” — disputing those original findings but, that in any event, it is no longer the case.
“In light of recent developments and new evidence, this recusal motion is timely filed and meritorious,” the second motion argues. “Authentic — and Ms. Merchan, as President, ‘partner,’ and ‘part-owner’ — will gain even more as the trial proceeds from both financial and reputational perspectives. This is demonstrated by, for example, Authentic’s efforts in February and March 2024 to market itself using social media posts that derided President Trump and promoted the company’s connections to President Biden and Vice President Harris.”
The defense’s second bite at the recusal apple additionally relies on controversy over an X account that recently used an image of Trump behind bars as its profile picture — but which changed its profile picture after being identified and attacked by Trump. The account was subsequently deleted and then re-claimed. That account was the subject of at least one incensed Trump post on Truth Social — which led to Merchan issuing an expanded gag order earlier this week.
Trump’s filing casts aspersions about the X account.
“Based on a separate recent statement by the Office of Court Administration, Ms. Merchan apparently ‘deleted’ an X account that contained posts reflecting hostility toward President Trump ‘last April,’ the same month that Your Honor solicited an ethics opinion regarding recusal in a letter containing information that the Court declined to disclose to the defense or the public,” the filing goes on. “The suspicious timing of the alleged decision by Ms. Merchan to ‘delete’ the X account, as well as more recent developments relating to the account, further support this motion.”
The motion also cites several of Authentic’s clients — along with several instances of their documented and politically telegraphed hostility towards Trump. Such rhetoric, the motion claims, has been improperly “driven by an immediate relative of the judge presiding over pending criminal charges” against the defendant “who is obviously a political and commercial target of Ms. Merchan and Authentic.”
Trump also claims the judge’s daughter previously, during a podcast interview, “disclosed statements by the Court that reflect bias toward President Trump” over his use of what was once called Twitter. These admissions were made, the defense claims, in an effort to promote Authentic.
“Personal political views may not be a basis for recusal,” the motion summarizes. “But profiting from the promotion of a political agenda that is hostile to President Trump, and has included fundraising solicitations based on this case, must be. Accordingly, President Trump respectfully requests that the Court recuse itself.”
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