Judge denies Donald Trump’s recusal bid

New York: Donald Trump has lost his latest bid for a new judge in his New York hush money criminal case as it heads toward a key ruling and potential sentencing next month.

In a decision posted Wednesday, Judge Juan M Merchan declined to step aside and said Trump’s demand was a rehash “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims” about the political ties of Merchan’s daughter and his ability to judge the historic case fairly and impartially.

It is the third that the judge has rejected such a request from lawyers for the former president and current Republican nominee.

All three times, they argued that Merchan, a state court judge in Manhattan, has a conflict of interest because of his daughter’s work as a political consultant for prominent Democrats

and campaigns. Among them was Vice President Kamala Harris when she sought the 2020 nomination for president. She is now her party’s 2024 White House nominee.

A state court ethics panel said last year that Merchan could continue on the case, writing that a

relative’s independent political activities are not “a reasonable basis to question the judge’s impartiality”.

Merchan has repeatedly said he is certain he will continue to base his rulings “on the evidence and the law, without fear or favour, casting aside undue influence”.

“With these fundamental principles in mind, this Court now reiterates for the third time, that which should already be clear — innuendo and mischaracterisations do not a conflict create,” Merchan wrote in his three-page ruling. “Recusal is therefore not necessary, much less required.”

But with Harris now Trump’s Democratic opponent in this year’s White House election, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote in a letter to the judge last month that the defence’s concerns have become “even more concrete”.

Prosecutors called the claims “a vexatious and frivolous attempt to relitigate” the issue.