The judge who oversaw former President Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial declined for a third time to step aside from the case, rebuking the former president’s lawyers for claiming that the judge had a distant yet problematic connection to Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a three-page decision dated Tuesday, the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, slammed Trump’s filing seeking his recusal as “rife with inaccuracies” and repetitive, and dismissed the idea that he had any conflict of interest.
Trump’s lawyers had argued that the judge’s daughter “has a long-standing relationship with Harris” — a claim her colleagues have disputed — and cited her “work for political campaigns” as a Democratic consultant. But prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which secured Trump’s conviction in May on felony charges of falsifying business records, called his request “a vexatious and frivolous attempt to relitigate” an issue that Merchan had already twice dismissed.
Merchan, a moderate Democrat who was once a registered Republican, rejected Trump’s initial bid to oust him last year and did so again in April, on the first day of trial. The judge, who has no direct ties to Harris, cited a state advisory committee on judicial ethics, which determined that his impartiality could not reasonably be questioned based on his daughter’s interests.
Trump, who has stoked right-wing furor against the judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, renewed the recusal request once President Joe Biden abandoned his presidential campaign and Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. She is now locked in a tight race with Trump, who has falsely portrayed his conviction as a Democratic plot to foil his campaign.
Juan Merchan’s decision, while anticipated, is consequential nonetheless: It enables him to soon decide two crucial matters that will shape Trump’s legal fate.
On Sept. 16, the judge is scheduled to determine whether to throw out Trump’s conviction following the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting him broad immunity for official actions as president. The former president’s long-shot request was vigorously opposed by prosecutors, who urged Merchan to uphold the jury’s verdict, noting that the case had nothing to do with Trump’s official acts in the White House.
If Merchan denies Trump’s immunity motion, as expected, Trump could mount an emergency appeal. If that fails, the judge will then proceed with Trump’s sentencing on Sept. 18. Trump faces up to four years in prison, but could receive a far shorter sentence, or even probation.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
