JUST IN: Judge Merchan Hit With New Legal Trouble

Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan, who will eventually sentence former President Donald Trump as the result of his hush money conviction, has been snagged in a complaint alleging he violated ethics rules around his position.

The complaint, filed by Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), alleges Trump’s conviction should be dismissed based on the fact that Merchan’s adult daughter is a Democratic consultant. Merchan, she writes, should be reprimanded “for his illegal conflict of interest in the sham Manhattan trial against President Trump,” alleging the Harris campaign has a “newly active financial relationship,” according to Fox News. She called on the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct to launch a “fresh inquiry concerning Justice Merchan’s conflict and take any appropriate action resulting from it.”

(VOTE: Are You Supporting TRUMP Or KAMALA In November?)

President Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts in an unprecedented trial, the first criminal conviction of a current or former president in American history. The case, brought by Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg, has been the impetus for Kamala Harris and her allies to label the former president a “convicted felon” campaigning to get his old job back. All of that is fraudulent and should never have occurred, Rep. Stefanik writes.

“On August 20, 2024, Vice President Harris’s campaign submitted its first Federal Election Commission (FEC) report that documented expenses and donations through July 31, 2024. In the report… a July 30, 2024, disbursement appears in the amount of $468.00 from Vice President Harris’s campaign to Authentic Campaigns Inc. (Authentic) for web hosting services,” Stefanik wrote in her complaint. “This indicates that one of the very first things that Harris did upon taking over the Biden campaign infrastructure is to hire this firm, Authentic.”

“Authentic is a digital consulting and marketing firm that services Democrat candidates. Loren Merchan, Justice Merchan’s daughter, is its president,” Stefanik added. “Vice President Harris changed web hosting companies from AWS to Authentic immediately after becoming the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee. This is merely the beginning of a new contract with a new campaign, regardless of the amount reimbursed. Sure, there’s an immediate benefit, but this is a play at a potential larger benefit for Authentic and Merchan down the road.”

Stefanik concludes by saying that court conduct “dictates that a judge must recuse from a case where a relative up to and including the sixth degree has a financial interest in the outcome of the case. Ms. Merchan is related to Justice Merchan in the first degree. Authentic has a newly active financial relationship with Vice President Harris’s campaign.”

The Harris campaign has not commented on a sensitive matter for Democrats, given that Judge Merchan’s daughter Loren Merchan has fundraised or strategically consulted for powerful party members like Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), among others. Defense attorneys for Trump are separately seeking to dismiss the conviction in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court ruling granting presidents sweeping immunity for official acts committed while in office. In other cases, some of their efforts have already found purchase: Florida U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon last month dismissed Trump’s classified documents case, agreeing with defense attorneys that special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

(FREE RED HAT: “Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still Standing”)