NYC hush money judge refuses to step down, slams Trump effort amid new reports of death threats

NEW YORK — The New York judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush-money trial once again refused to step down from the case in court filings made public Wednesday as the News obtained new information about death threats targeting the judge’s family.

State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan categorically rejected Trump’s repeated claims he’s biased due to his daughter’s job as a political consultant for Authentic, a progressive digital agency that works on campaigns for Democrats.

Describing the GOP presidential candidate’s latest recusal motion as “rife with inaccuracies” and a “stale” rehashing of his failed legal arguments, Merchan said, “[This] court now reiterates for the third time, that which should already be clear — innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create.”

In new information obtained exclusively by the News, the ongoing accusations that Loren Merchan and her colleagues are profiting from her father’s rulings in efforts to keep Trump out of the White House and boost Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign have resulted in a flurry of death threats, the CEO of Authentic, Mike Nellis, said in a letter to the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee. The committee is probing the prosecution of Trump and has named Authentic as a target in the investigation.

“Since these unfounded allegations surfaced, Loren Merchan and I have faced death threats and harassment, and suffered reputational damage. Members of our families have been harassed and received threats as well. In some cases, threats were discovered by or deemed credible by law enforcement, requiring intervention,” Nellis wrote.

“Loren and her family have been advised by law enforcement on several occasions to leave their home for their own safety after her personal information, including her home address, was widely shared by self-proclaimed MAGA Supporters.”

Nellis, a former Harris adviser who declined to comment beyond what was in the letter, told Jordan the “false right-wing conspiracy theory” was “harming innocent people and setting a dangerous precedent for Members of Congress to use their power to intimidate and execute politically motivated attacks on private citizens, even targeting the family member of a judge.”

In their failed hush money case motion vehemently opposed by prosecutors, Trump’s lawyers arguing for Merchan’s recusal maintained that Harris taking President Biden’s place in this year’s race for the White House presented new “concrete” reasons, citing his daughter’s involvement in the VP’s last presidential campaign.

But Merchan — who a state judicial ethics committee previously determined didn’t have an impartiality issue — said there was still no there there, enumerating Trump’s multiple failed bids to him and higher courts.

“Raising no new facts or law, the Defendant again premised his motion for recusal on the unsubstantiated claims that a family member of this Court stood to gain financially from this Court’s rulings,” Merchan wrote, noting there was no need for him to repeat the legal analysis contained in his prior rulings.

“Stated plainly, Defendant’s arguments are nothing more than a repetition of stale and unsubstantiated claims,” the decision said, with the judge adding he’d continue to base his rulings “on the evidence and the law, without fear or favor.”

A jury found Trump, 78, guilty of 34 felony counts of falsification of New York business records on May 30, making him the first U.S. president ever to be convicted of a crime. The case centered on his payback to Michael Cohen for executing a scheme to hide unflattering information about his alleged sexual exploits from the 2016 electorate, including a last-minute payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels before the election.

Trump plans to appeal the conviction after he’s sentenced on Sept. 18. The charges carry up to four years in prison, a potential term of probation, or possibly monetary fines. He’s separately pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in Washington, D.C., and Georgia tied to his alleged efforts to subvert the results of the last presidential election.

With just over a month to go until he’s sentenced for his crimes, Trump is still awaiting an answer to his request that Merchan throw out the verdict based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling finding presidents are shielded from criminal liability for most “official” acts.

His lawyers have not argued the hush money scheme — hatched before the 2016 election – constituted an “official” act but that the decision should have barred prosecutors from using evidence relating to his time in the White House — a fraction of that presented at trial — like exhibits relating to his presidential Twitter account and testimony about his conversations with staff concerning media reporting on the payoff to Daniels. Merchan is slated to rule on the motion by Sept. 16.

Last week, Trump asked New York’s highest court to release him from Merchan’s gag order barring public comments about trial participants after a mid-level appeals court said it should stay in place until his sentencing.

Merchan lifted parts of the order after Trump’s conviction, allowing him to comment on witnesses like Cohen and Daniels, but he still can’t comment on the prosecution team, court staff, their relatives, and family members of Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who’s also been subjected to ongoing death threats amid Trump’s attacks, The News has reported.

Trump’s online diatribes about Merchan’s daughter led to the judge expanding the order to include his and Bragg’s family members after Trump boosted false claims she had trashed him on Twitter, now known as X.

Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, accused Merchan of being personally biased against Trump and told the Associated Press the judge “has proved to be biased against President Trump and beholden to not only Democrat partisan interests, but also to the glaring financial interests of an immediate family member.”

The Manhattan DA’s office declined to comment.

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