Juan Merchan, the Manhattan judge presiding over the convoluted case concocted against Donald Trump, contributed small amounts of money in the 2020 cycle to Joe Biden, the Progressive Turnout Project, and another group called Stop Republicans.
His 2024 in-kind contributions to both Biden and Stop Republicans dwarf the minimal amounts donated four years ago. One surmises these campaign gifts vastly exceed the limits allowed by law. This raises serious questions about the state judge flouting the federal campaign finance laws that the trial he oversees accuses the defendant of violating.
Some people do not get their own irony.
“I should be right now in Pennsylvania, in Florida, in many other states, North Carolina, Georgia campaigning,” Trump told the media at the courthouse Tuesday morning. “This is all coming from the Biden White House because the guy can’t put two sentences together. He can’t campaign. They’re using this in order to try to win an election.”
Indeed, the Biden supporters prosecuting and trying the case severely hamstring Trump not only from campaigning against their candidate but by siphoning his funds away from the race toward his legal defense. The courtroom harassment aims to propel old, tawdry stories pertaining to Trump’s personal life into the news cycle to discredit him (though allegations that he bedded Karen McDougal surely bring Trump more admiration than scorn). And through a gag order, the judge seeks to muzzle the president from responding to the attacks against him by various of the trial’s players, whose speech often veers from the legal into the political somehow without invoking Censor Merchan’s intervention.
“We can’t be hypocrites when it comes to the 1st Amendment,” responded former Trump Hater No. 1 Michael Avenatti from prison. “It is outrageous that [Michael] Cohen and [Stormy] Daniels can do countless TV interviews, post on social, & make $$ on bogus documentaries — all by talking $#!+ about Trump — but he’s gagged and threatened with jail if he responds.”
Marchan not only donated to the president and left-wing groups but his daughter, as a since-scrubbed LinkedIn CV noted, worked for Kamala Harris. Her firm took in about $10 million that we know of from Harris and Biden. Her client list includes the Democratic National Committee, Senate Majority PAC, and Adam Schiff, who prosecuted Trump during his first impeachment. The judge’s daughter derives her income in a massive way from bashing Donald Trump.
Even CNN admits: “[I]t’s true that Loren Merchan has served as president of Authentic Campaigns, a firm that does digital campaign work like online fundraising, mobile messaging and web design, the firm has scrubbed references to her on its site, and it’s difficult to directly link Authentic to specific political ads. Still, the firm works for campaigns that have disparaged Trump, including for being charged with crimes.”
What strikes as the reason Merchan should recuse himself acts as the precise motivation for why he never will. Zealots inherently strive to become participant and referee to rig the game in which they play. They do not understand or maybe do not respect the line separating the blindness of justice from the partiality of politics. That’s what makes them zealots. This is all very Alice in Wonderland.
This logic applies not just to the one holding the gavel but to the 12 sitting in the box as well. Most people lie to get off jury duty. In this case, the danger stems from political fanatics lying to get on the jury.
Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by a 7-to-1 margin in Manhattan in 2020 and voters fill the island’s 10 city council seats with 10 Democrats.
When the defense attempted to exclude one woman in the jury pool for social media posts indicating a bias, the judge on Tuesday justified keeping her by saying, “I was able to see her demeanor, I was able to hear her voice.” He scolded Trump for “audibly muttering,” which he claimed amounted to juror intimidation.
The flipside of Trump’s famous claim that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a voter applies here. He could jaywalk across Fifth Avenue and his opponent’s voters would convict him of, if not murder, then 34 felonies.
This preposterous case, of course, is rigged. That, however, amounts to the shiny object that distracts from the primary malefaction: the trial brought by left-wingers on a tiny, self-important island seeks to rig the whole country’s presidential election.
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