Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied a request by indicted felon Donald Trump’s lawyers seeking to remove the judge from the case relating to Trump’s coverup of hush money payments to a porn star he had a sexual encounter with, claiming he was biased because his daughter’s employer, Authentic Campaigns, does work for Democratic candidates, the New York Post reports.
Trump lawyers also sought Merchan’s recusal because the judge donated a total of $20 to Democratic candidates in the 2020 election cycle. [A search of the FEC database shows no donation to federal candidates by anyone named “Juan Merchan” in New York.]
“The speculative and hypothetical scenarios offered by Defendant fall well short of the legal standard,” Merchan wrote in his decision, saying he “examined [his] conscience and is certain in [his] ability to be fair and impartial.”