(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Donald Trump is calling for the immediate recusal of Judge Juan Merchan from his Manhattan case due to his daughter’s ties to Vice President Kamala Harris and multi-million-dollar business dealings with her.
On Thursday, Trump’s attorneys filed a motion citing Loren Merchan’s relationship with Harris’s political campaigns as evidence of potential conflicts of interest in the case.
Loren Merchan and the New York State Unified Court System did not respond to Headline USA’s interview requests before publication.
“Your Honor’s daughter has a long-standing relationship with Harris, including work for political campaigns. She has obtained — and stands to obtain in the future — extensive financial, professional, and personal benefits from her relationship with Harris,” Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote, as reported by ABC News and journalist Julie Kelly.
House Judiciary just opened an investigation into Loren Merchan’s firm, Authentic Campaigns, which looks more and more like Fusion GPS 2.0 pic.twitter.com/GR2R6K1TFv
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 1, 2024
The motion is related to the $9 million that Harris and the Biden campaign paid Loren Merchan for alleged “services” during the 2020 cycle. Loren Merchan runs a marketing agency called Authentic Campaigns, which lists high-profile Democrats as clients.
Among these clients are President Joe Biden, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Sen. John Hickenlooper and pro-Democrats Senate Majority and the House Majority PACs.
These ties have triggered an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee into Authentic Campaigns and potential bias by the judge against Trump. Specifically, Harris paid $7 million to Authentic Campaigns, followed by Biden’s $2 million.
Following Trump’s indictment in Manhattan over business payments to his former attorney Michael Cohen, some Democrats connected to Loren Merchan have received multi-million-dollar donations.
Rep. Adam Schiff’s Senate campaign pocketed $20 million in donations from the Trump indictments. The Senate Majority PAC garnered $73.6 million by using the indictments as campaign talking points, the House Judiciary Committee stated in a letter addressed to Loren Merchan. The multi-million dollar figures were first unveiled by the New York Post on March 30.
“At a minimum, there is a perception that you and Authentic Campaigns could profit considerably from President Trump’s prosecution in a forum overseen by your father,” the letter read.
The letter concluded, “Judge Merchan’s conflicts of interest and biases in the case against President Trump, the Republican nominee in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, implicate serious federal interests. Congress has a specific and manifestly important interest in preventing politically motivated prosecutions of current and former presidents, especially in venues in which real or perceived biases exist.”
#NEWS: @Jim_Jordan Demands Documents from Loren Merchan, President of Authentic Campaigns Inc. and a former Kamala Harris campaign staffer.
Loren Merchan’s father, Judge Juan Merchan, presided over President Trump’s trial and refused to recuse himself despite the apparent… pic.twitter.com/sJ002k4ake
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 1, 2024