OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
3:24 PM – Thursday, August 15, 2024
In the lead-up to a significant decision and feared sentencing next month, Donald Trump has lost his most recent bid for a new judge in his criminal case in New York.
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Judge Juan M. Merchan refused to recuse himself in a ruling released on Wednesday, claiming that Trump’s demand was a repetition “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims” regarding Merchan’s daughter’s career in Democrat politics and his capacity to render a fair and impartial conclusion in the momentous issue.
The judge has turned down this kind of request from the former president’s and the current Republican nominee’s attorneys three different times.
On three separate occasions, attorneys contended that Merchan, a liberal Manhattan state court judge, was a conflict of interest in Trump’s case since his daughter works as a political adviser for well-known Democrats and their campaigns. She has even previously worked for Vice President Kamala Harris during her 2020 presidential campaign.
Merchan was allowed to proceed with the case last year, according to a state court ethics tribunal, which claimed that a relative’s political activity is not “a reasonable basis to question the judge’s impartiality.”
Merchan has also continuously stressed that he would continue to base his decisions “on the evidence and the law, casting aside undue influence.” However, it is hard to believe that any New York judge would truly be objective in a case involving Donald Trump if he and his family oppose Trump as a politician.
“With these fundamental principles in mind, this Court now reiterates for the third time, that which should already be clear—innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create,” Merchan wrote. “Recusal is therefore not necessary, much less required.”
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of allegedly fabricating company documents to “hide a 2016 agreement to pay porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet” about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with him. Nevertheless, it was Trump’s former attorney-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, who was in charge of the documents at the time.
Prosecution attorneys tried to portray the payment as a part of Trump’s campaign strategy to prevent voters from “learning negative information” about him.
Trump maintains that all of the so-called “hush money” allegations about him are untrue, that the financial records were authentic, and that the lawsuit was a strategic ploy to harm his candidacy.
Democrat Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, is the prosecutor who filed the charges. Trump has also promised to file an appeal. However, to do so is not permitted by law prior to a defendant’s sentencing.
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