Left: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell). Right: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II).
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pushing back on yet another attempt by former President Donald Trump to have the judge in charge of his hush-money case tossed from the proceedings.
On July 31, attorneys for the 45th president filed a motion for New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to recuse himself from this case – based on his daughter’s “long-standing and extremely beneficial working relationship” with Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Aug. 2, in a letter dated the day before, the district attorney’s office filed its response to the defense’s renewed recusal bid.
The state’s filing calls Trump’s motion to renew “a vexatious and frivolous attempt to relitigate an issue that was twice addressed” by the judge himself and then later reviewed by a court of appeals.
Trump’s effort treads familiar ground that has been well worn – and, to date, ineffective – in the document falsification case.
Since early 2023, the former president has tried to make hay – both political and legal – out of the fact that Merchan’s daughter is an in-demand Democratic Party political consultant. In motions, Trump’s attorneys highlighted her criticism of the defendant and her work for his political rivals via her position as the head of Authentic Campaigns.
In May 2023, an Empire State court ethics panel found Merchan’s “impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned” because of his daughter’s “business and/or political activities” and that he was “not ethically required to disclose them.” The judge issued his own ruling in August 2023, finding that “recusal would not be in the public interest” and that he was “certain in [his] ability to be fair and impartial.”
Later, in a series of social media posts, Trump directly criticized the judge’s daughter for her commentary and career – prompting Merchan to expand a previously-limited gag order in the case.
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Whereas Trump’s original objections were mostly based on the judge’s daughter’s work for President Joe Biden, the newly-filed motion to recuse is based on the judge’s daughter’s work for Harris.
“Your Honor’s daughter has a long-standing relationship with Harris, including work for political campaigns,” the defense motion reads. “She has obtained–and stands to obtain in the future–extensive financial, professional, and personal benefits from her relationship with Harris.”
The district attorney’s office says this argument offers nothing new.
“Defendant identifies no new facts or changes in the law that warrant a different outcome,” the state’s filing reads. “He appears to base his motion on the fact that Vice President Harris is now a candidate for President, rather than Vice President. But defendant’s earlier motions already argued that the Vice President was his political opponent and that the Court’s family member would therefore purportedly benefit somehow from rulings in this case.”
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Bragg’s response goes on to note that Trump’s newest motion is based on the “same affirmation” used in an April recusal filing.
“This regurgitated showing does not come close to meeting the standard to renew,” the district attorney’s office argues.
Trump also tied his newest recusal motion into a pending effort to have his 34-count felony conviction thrown out entirely.
That adjacent effort is premised on the idea the state used – and the court allowed – several pieces of evidence covered by presidential immunity. The use of such evidence, Trump argues, is improper because it was since prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court. And, the defense says, the disallowed evidence infected every stage of the case, from the grand jury presentation to the trial itself.
“Your Honor’s daughter was publicly critical of President Trump’s use of Twitter–a central issue in the pending Presidential immunity motion–and described a discussion on that topic with Your Honor that evidences prejudgment of President Trump’s official-acts arguments,” the defense’s newest recusal motion reads.
Bragg eschews the presidential immunity issue – focusing instead on Trump’s repetitive, in vain, travails to convince Merchan or Empire State appellate courts about the “speculative” nature of the harm the judge’s daughter’s work relationships bring to bear on the case.
“No amount of overheated, hyperbolic rhetoric can cure the fatal defects in defendant’s ongoing effort to impugn the fairness of these proceedings and the impartiality of this Court,” the state’s filing says in summary. “The motion for recusal should be denied for a third time.”
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