Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has filed a misconduct complaint against the Democrat judge overseeing President Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial in New York.
Stefanik filed the complaint on Tuesday evening, alleging that Justice Juan Merchan’s selection to handle the 45th president’s case is “not random at all.”
She also noted that Merchan, a Biden donor with deep ties to the Democrats, has also been assigned to the cases of Trump’s allies.
Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chairwoman, filed the complaint with the inspector general of the New York State Unified Court System.
The top GOP lawyer is calling for an investigation into Merchan “to determine whether the required random selection process was in fact followed.”
“The potential misconduct pertains to the repeated assignment of Acting Justice Juan Merchan, a Democrat Party donor, to criminal cases related to President Donald J. Trump and his allies,” Stefanik wrote.
“Acting Justice Merchan currently presides over the criminal case against President Trump brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg,” she said.
“Acting Justice Merchan also presided over the criminal trial against the Trump Organization and will be presiding over the criminal trial of Steve Bannon, a senior advisor in President Trump’s White House and a prominent advocate for President Trump,” Stefanik continued.
Stefanik notes that there were at least two dozen sitting justices eligible to oversee the cases.
However, Merchan – an acting jurist – was selected for all three related to the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee for president and his allies.
“If justices were indeed being randomly assigned in the Criminal Term, the probability of two specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is quite low, and the probability of three specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is infinitesimally small,” Stefanik argued.
“And yet, we see Acting Justice Merchan on all three cases.”
The congresswoman also highlighted the judge’s political donations, for which he was cleared of misconduct last July by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Merchan contributed $15 earmarked for the “Biden for President” campaign on July 26, 2020.
On the following day, he then made $10 contributions to the far-left Progressive Turnout Project and Stop Republicans each, Federal Election Commission records show
The donations were made through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s preferred online fundraising platform.
According to the group’s website, the Progressive Turnout Project’s stated mission is to “rally Democrats to vote.”
Stop Republicans is a subsidiary of the Progressive Turnout Project.
It describes itself as “a grassroots-funded effort dedicated to resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.”
The judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, is more involved in Democrat politics through her work as head of the consulting firm Authentic Campaigns.
Stefanik argued in her missive that Loren Merchan’s “firm stands to profit greatly if Donald Trump is convicted.”
“One cannot help but suspect that the ‘random selection’ at work in the assignment of Acting Justice Merchan, a Democrat Party donor, to these cases involving prominent Republicans, is in fact not random at all,” the Republican congresswoman wrote.
Stefanik demanded an investigation into the “anomaly.”
She asked that anyone found to be involved in any sort of “scheme” to get Merchan on the three cases face discipline.