NYC judge should toss Trump recusal bid in ‘hush money’ case, Alvin Bragg says
Donald Trump’s bid to force the recusal of the magistrate in his criminal “hush money” case should be tossed out as an improper bid “to select his own judge,” Manhattan prosecutors argue in new court papers.
The 45th president earlier this month said Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan should withdraw from overseeing the criminal case against him, claiming Merchan’s daughter’s company has a “political and financial interest” in the outcome.
Lawyers for Trump, 77, also argued that Merchan should leave the case because of $35 in political contributions he made in the 2020 presidential election and because he urged former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to be a government witness.
But Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, alleges that Trump has a “prolific history of baselessly accusing state and federal judges around the country of bias” and his recusal motion is “an apparent effort … to select his own judge.”
For example, Colangelo recounted, Trump claimed that US Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor should recuse themselves on any Trump-related case, that DC federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson was “totally biased,” and that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron is “a highly partisan, Trump hating judge.”
This proves that “this motion is based on tactics, not ethics,” Colangelo wrote. “His attacks on judges and the judicial system themselves undermine public confidence in the integrity of the judicial system.”
Trump’s motion should also be rejected to deter other defendants in the future “from judge-shopping,” Colangelo wrote.
As to Merchan’s daughter, who works for a company that helps political candidates with online campaigns, she “has no direct personal or professional relationship” with prosecutors or with Trump, Colangelo said.
Any connection the daughter has to the case is “pure speculation,” Colangelo wrote.
The prosecutor also took shots at Trump’s other arguments, claiming that Merchan’s political contributions are too small to warrant him stepping off the case.
Colangelo said that in a separate case — which resulted in the Trump Org getting convicted of tax crimes — Merchan rejected very similar arguments for recusal that the former president is now rehashing.
An embattled Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records for his involvement in orchestrating a hush-money payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about her claims she had an affair with Trump.
In a separate federal case in Florida, Trump is charged with hoarding a trove of classified documents related to US national security at his Mar-a-Lago resort after he left office, and then later lying about it.
Trump pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Trump lawyer Susan Necheles declined to comment Tuesday.
