After losing a last-ditch effort to postpone the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president, Donald Trump lashed out at the New York judge overseeing the case: Judge Juan Merchan.
“Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on March 28. “If the biased and contradictory judge is allowed to remain in this sham case, it will be another sad example of how our country is becoming a banana republic.”
Despite Trump's vitriol and efforts to throw Merchan off the case, the judge has approached the proceedings with concern for Trump's rights as a defendant and presidential candidate, and with resolve in the face of what he sees as troubling behavior and personal attacks on his family by the former US president.
The veteran judge, who began his career as an assistant district attorney in the same office that now prosecutes Trump, has already overseen a criminal trial against Trump's family business and is presiding over the criminal case of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
At the trial, Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying company records to cover up a $130,000 payment his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter that she said she had with Trump ten years earlier.
Trump, the Republican candidate for president in the Nov. 5 election, has pleaded not guilty and denies any such encounter. Judge Merchan has emphasized that he does not want the trial to hinder Trump's ability to campaign or publicly criticize the case.
But he has been steadfast in enforcing the rules in his courtroom, such as when he said during jury selection on Tuesday that Trump had spoken and gestured toward a prospective juror while she was being questioned just 12 feet (3.7 meters) away. from him. “I won't tolerate that,” Judge Merchan said after the prospective juror left the room, raising his voice. “I don't want jurors to be intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear.” The juror was not chosen.
In late March, Judge Merchan granted a request from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office for a gag order restricting Trump's public statements about witnesses, court staff and individual accusers. The judge said some of Trump's statements were threatening or inflammatory.
The judge later expanded the order to include his family members and those of Bragg, whose office filed the suit, after Trump disparaged the judge's daughter online. Trump's lawyers have argued that Judge Merchan should be removed from the case because of his daughter's work for a political consulting firm with Democratic clients. Judge Merchan denied these requests twice.
From queens to courtroom
The hush money case is the first of four criminal charges Trump will face in court. Trump has also pleaded not guilty in the other cases, related to efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his handling of government documents.
The history-making trial is a far cry from Judge Merchan's previous work at the state Court of Claims, which hears cases against the state and its agencies, and at family court in the Bronx.
The judge was born in Colombia and moved to the United States at the age of six, where he grew up in the Queens borough of New York City, where Trump also spent much of his childhood. He graduated from Baruch College in New York City and Hofstra University School of Law on Long Island. He has been a judge at the Manhattan Criminal Court since 2009. Over the past three years, he has overseen several politically charged cases involving Trump and his allies.
Judge Merchan presided over a criminal trial against the Trump Organization in 2022. The real estate company was convicted by a jury of tax fraud. Judge Merchan later ordered the company to pay $1.6 million in fines. He is also overseeing the case of Steve Bannon, who is currently scheduled to go to trial in May. The former Trump campaign and White House adviser has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges in connection with a nonprofit that raised money to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.
Trump's trial was originally scheduled to begin on March 25, but Merchan postponed it by three weeks when defense lawyers expressed concerns about the late production of potential evidence. After finding Trump's arguments unfounded, the judge has shown little patience for alleged delay attempts.
In an April 3 order rejecting Trump's attempt to exclude any evidence, Judge Merchan wrote: “The fact that Defendant waited only 17 days before the scheduled trial date of March 25, 2024 to file the motion raises real questions about the sincerity and real purpose of the motion.”
(This story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)