More details are emerging that reveal a major conflict of interest for the judge overseeing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against President Donald Trump.
Bragg’s get-Trump case is widely viewed as a politically motivated effort to disrupt the 45th president’s 2024 election campaign.
Bragg, who was installed in the DA’s office by radical billionaire George Soros, ran his own election campaign on a “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” promise to get Trump.
Now evidence is emerging to suggest that Bragg may not be the only one connected to the case who is motivated by anti-Trump bias.
The judge presiding over Trump’s criminal case is Acting New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Manuel Merchan.
As Slay News previously reported, Merchan’s daughter Loren once worked for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Loren Merchan now also runs a company that lists the Biden-Harris campaign as its top client.
And according to newly emerged Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, Judge Merchan himself donated to Democrat President Joe Biden’s 2020 election campaign.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, Merchan donated three times to ActBlue in the summer of 2020.
One of Merchan’s donations was made on July 26, 2020, and was earmarked for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, according to the FEC.
Another one of Merchan’s contributions was pledged to the Progressive Turnout Project (PTP).
PTP is a left-wing PAC that rallies voter turnout for Democrat candidates.
Merchan’s final donation was made to Stop Republicans, a PTP sub-project that’s dedicated to “resisting” Trump and the Republican Party.
The news comes after the revelations about Merchan’s daughter.
Seems relevant… yet another connection in this hand picked democrat show trial. The BS never ends folks.
Daughter of Judge on Trump Case Worked on Biden-Harris Campaign https://t.co/5FtA7K9732
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 4, 2023
Loren Merchan’s now-deleted LinkedIn page, which listed her pronouns, confirmed that she worked as the director of digital persuasion for Kamala Harris for the People in 2019.
Currently, Loren serves as president of Authentic Campaigns, a consulting, digital advertising, and online fundraising agency.
The organization boasts that it has raised over $250 million for progressive campaigns.
A video of a smiling Harris being greeted by a crowd of supporters on the 2020 presidential campaign trail autoplays on the site’s landing page and the Biden-Harris campaign’s logo sits at the top of its client roster.
Over the years, Authentic Campaigns has won a collection of accolades, mostly for its work for the Harris campaign, while Loren was awarded the coveted 2020 Rising Star title, considered one of the most prestigious honors in the campaign world, by the Campaign & Elections trade magazine, which recognizes “the best young operatives in the campaign business.”
The President at Authentic Campaigns is Loren Merchan: She holds several certifications and titles, including the Google Elections Academy. https://t.co/CmOozfRvpl pic.twitter.com/KmeDPpfTIj
— 𝕔hi𝓁𝓁iຖ໐iˢ (@chiIIum) August 11, 2020
Trump was arraigned before Merchan in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday afternoon.
In a pair of Truth Social posts, Trump blasted Merchan as a “highly partisan” judge who “hates” him.
Trump also called out his daughter’s left-wing political affiliations and referenced previous cases where the justice oversaw a handful of high-profile prosecutions of former Trump associates.
Trump attacking the judge hours before the arraignment pic.twitter.com/huV784ecBb
— Steve Lookner (@lookner) April 4, 2023
Trump attacking the Judge now. pic.twitter.com/Nw7PuWeU1C
— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) March 31, 2023
Trump’s arraignment comes after Merchan sentenced Trump’s close confidant Allen Weisselberg to jail time.
Merchan also handled the correlating but separate Trump Organization tax-fraud trial, in which Trump’s namesake firm was found guilty—with the help of Weisselberg as the star witness.
The judge’s caseload also includes overseeing former Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s fraud case.
At Weisselberg’s sentencing hearing in January, Merchan told the Trump Organization’s ex-chief financial officer, who accepted a plea deal with prosecutors, that he would’ve imposed a “much greater” punishment had he not already been promised a five-month jail sentence plus probation.
As part of the agreement, Weisselberg also repaid around $2 million in back taxes he owed.
Weisselberg’s lawyer appealed to Merchan for leniency, citing his 75-year-old client’s age and his cooperation with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Bragg had agreed to recommend a lower sentence in exchange for Weisselberg’s testimony against Trump’s company.
“I believe that a stiffer sentence would be appropriate, having heard the evidence,” Merchan responded.
Weeks before the Trump Organization’s fraud-and-tax-evasion trial was scheduled to begin last fall, Merchan shot down arguments from Trump lawyers that asserted that the case was politically motivated and originated out of animus for Trump.
“I will not allow you in any way to bring up a selective prosecution claim, or claim this is some sort of novel prosecution,” Merchan declared in court.
Merchan later added that he “will have very little patience at trial any questions that are not in a good-faith basis.”
In Bannon’s case, Merchan chastised the former Trump aide’s team of attorneys when the defense requested a year to review new evidence, four terabytes of data and documents, throughout the discovery phase.
Merchan gave Bannon’s side four months.
During both Bannon’s and the Trump Organization’s criminal proceedings, Merchan reportedly made rulings designed to limit the defendants from drawing the cases out.
A court decision, which was unsealed late last year, revealed that there was a “secret” one-day trial in October 2021, which resulted in Merchan holding the Trump Organization in contempt after Bragg’s office requested that Trump’s company be punished for “willfully disobeying” several grand jury subpoenas and court orders enforcing compliance.
Bragg’s prosecutors, who eventually won a conviction, were left ill-prepared to question witnesses, Merchan ruled.
