‘Potential misconduct’ behind Merchan’s numerous Trump trial

New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik sent a letter to New York officials arguing there may have been “misconduct” within the New York Supreme Court system to ensure Judge Juan Merchan presided over the unprecedented NY v. Trump trial. 

“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,” Stefanik wrote in a letter Tuesday warning of “potential misconduct” sent to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct and the Inspector General of the New York State Unified Court System. The Daily Mail first reported the letter Tuesday. 

Stefanik pointed to how Merchan has overseen a handful of cases involving Trump or his allies, including the NY v. Trump case, the criminal trial against the Trump Organization in 2022 – a case that found the organization guilty of tax fraud – and is set to oversee the upcoming trial of Trump ally Steve Bannon. 

“The simple answer to why Acting Justice Merchan has been assigned to these cases would seem to be that whoever made the assignment intentionally selected Acting Justice Merchan to handle them to increase the chance that Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and Steven Bannon would ultimately be convicted,” Stefanik continued in the letter. 

STEFANIK FILES ETHICS COMPLAINT AGAINST TRUMP TRIAL JUDGE, CITES DAUGHTER’S WORK FOR GROUP PROMOTING DEMS