The elected Democratic DA has a judge who contributed to Biden’s 2020 campaign poised to sentence the Republican nominee two days after early voting begins.
While I took some time off (more or less), there was post-trial legal wrangling in Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of former president Donald Trump. It has now come to a head, with Judge Juan Merchan signaling that he is prepared to deny the Republican presidential nominee’s motions to vacate the guilty verdicts and impose a sentence right as early voting begins in the 2024 election.
Recall that in May, the jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of business-records falsification — those were the formal allegations, even though Bragg was permitted by the presiding state judge, Juan Merchan, to try the case as if the charge were conspiracy to steal the 2016 election by violating federal campaign law.
Shortly thereafter, on July 1, in the federal election-interference case brought against Trump by the Biden-Harris Justice Department, the Supreme Court held that Trump had immunity from prosecution for official acts as president (absolute immunity for core executive acts, and presumptive immunity for all acts within the broad ambit of executive authority). The Court’s majority reasoned that this immunity not only prohibits prosecutors from charging official acts as crimes per se but also from using official acts as evidence to prove other crimes.
Trump thus moved to have the guilty verdicts thrown out. Defense counsel emphasized that Bragg’s prosecution featured evidence of such official acts as Trump’s communications as president with White House staff (two of whom were called as prosecution witnesses), as well as testimony that Trump intended to have his then–attorney general interfere with an FEC investigation of hush-money payments. (See also my column, here.)
Meantime, Democrats swapped out President Biden as their de facto 2024 presidential nominee in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. The judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, has worked extensively and lucratively as a political operative for Harris. Hence, on July 31, Trump’s counsel renewed the defense request that Judge Merchan recuse himself from the case. Prior to the trial, Merchan had denied such a motion, in which Team Trump had detailed Loren Merchan’s relationship Harris. Yet, because Harris is now Trump’s opponent in the November election, defense counsel strained to frame the relationship as if its relevance had just been discovered (or at least was previously unappreciated). Trump’s lawyers wrote:
Your Honor’s daughter has a long-standing relationship with Harris, including work for political campaigns. She has obtained—and stands to obtain in the future—extensive financial, professional, and personal benefits from her relationship with Harris. . . . In 2019, 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. . . . In 2020, Your Honor’s daughter was openly hostile to President Trump on social media. . . . Your Honor’s daughter is a part owner and executive at Authentic Campaigns, Inc., which (1) was the top vendor for Harris’s prior presidential campaign, based on disbursements of nearly $5 million; (2) touted its subsequent work for the Biden-Harris campaign in connection with at least the 2020 election; and (3) made tens of millions of dollars by helping other politicians disseminate political advertisements based on this case [i.e., Bragg’s case against Trump]. . . . On October 20, 2023—during this case—Authentic posted an image of Harris to its Instagram account with the caption: “Happy Birthday to the MVP of MVPs. @ KamalaHarris! Here’s a little throwback to when she stopped by our DC office to celebrate the launch of her presidential campaign in 2019. How far we’ve come.” . . . According to FEC filings, Authentic has received over $12 million in disbursements from Democrat and progressive politicians and PACs since January 2024. Although Authentic restricted its Twitter account following scrutiny of the recusal issue, the company’s public Twitter profile currently features Harris. According to public reports around July 29, 2024, Authentic’s founder—a partner and colleague of Your Honor’s daughter—leads a group called “White Dudes for Harris,” which has raised millions of dollars for Harris’s current campaign against President Trump.
Immediately after the jury’s verdict, Judge Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for July 11. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, however, Merchan granted Trump’s request for a postponement that would enable the parties to brief the immunity issue. Sentencing was postponed to September 18, with the proviso that it could be further postponed, or even canceled, if Merchan decided to grant Trump’s dismissal motion.
In the course of briefing the immunity issue, Trump’s lawyers made their renewed recusal motion. Further, they asked Merchan to resolve the recusal issue before ruling on the question of whether the Supreme Court’s immunity decision requires the guilty verdicts to be set aside.
The DA’s office responded to the immunity claim on July 24, and to the recusal claim last week (August 1). Trump then asked for an additional week to respond to the DA’s latest submission.
In a letter to the parties issued Monday, Judge Merchan denied Trump’s request to file another response, explaining: “This Court does not believe such a reply is necessary or helpful at this stage of the proceedings.” Ominously (from the defense perspective), Merchan added:
Please note, the court appearance scheduled for September 18, at 10 A.M., remains unchanged. [Emphasis in original.] We will proceed on that date and time to the imposition of sentence or other proceedings as appropriate. Please keep these dates in mind if you still wish to file a pre-sentence recommendation.
Today is August 6. Merchan has had Trump’s immunity brief for almost a month and the state’s reply for nearly two weeks. He has had Trump’s latest arguments on recusal — an issue he already decided against Trump — for a week. It seems inconceivable that the judge sent yesterday’s letter without having already decided how he is going to rule on these matters. His letter emphasizes that the sentencing date is not being postponed and urges the parties to submit whatever arguments they intend to make regarding the sentence to be meted out in connection with the 34 guilty verdicts.
That sure sounds like a judge who is ready to impose sentence.
Clearly, Merchan is going to reaffirm his previous rejection of Trump’s call for him to recuse himself from the case. (Merchan has already rationalized that his own contributions to Biden’s 2020 campaign against Trump, which violated state ethics rules, did not require his recusal; he’s not going to step aside from the case that has made him a progressive icon over his progressive-activist daughter’s ties to Trump’s current progressive Democratic opponent.) Then, Merchan is going to deny Trump’s claim that the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling requires that the jury’s guilty verdicts be vacated.
Merchan’s letter indicates that he will issue a formal recusal ruling during the week of August 11, followed by his immunity ruling on September 16. He will then sentence the Republican nominee September 18 — less than seven weeks before Election Day, and two days after early voting begins in Pennsylvania.
I’ve contended that the Democrats’ anti-Trump lawfare campaign is a spent force. Obviously, that doesn’t mean they’re done trying to wring any last advantage out of it — as demonstrated by the efforts of Biden-Harris–administration prosecutor Jack Smith and Judge Tanya Chutkan to get the federal election-interference prosecution up and running again.
There is no legal reason why Judge Merchan must sentence Trump before the election. The only plausible reason is that Merchan and Bragg are conspiring to influence the 2024 election — ironic given that they claim Trump is being prosecuted for conspiring to influence the 2016 election.