(NEW YORK) — A change in the nation’s political landscape means the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case should be recused, defense attorneys argued in a court filing made public Thursday.
Trump is reviving a longshot effort to have Judge Juan Merchan recused from the case because of an alleged conflict between the judge’s daughter and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
“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,” defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.
Describing the vice president as Trump’s “presumptive opponent,” defense lawyers argued that Merchan’s daughter has had an “extremely beneficial working relationship” with Harris because her company was a top vendor to Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign.
This is the third time Trump’s lawyers have attempted to have Judge Merchan removed from the case. Last year, New York’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics determined that Merchan’s impartiality “cannot reasonably be questioned” based on his daughter’s professional work as a political consultant.
When Trump renewed his motion earlier this year, Merchan determined that defense lawyers failed to prove a conflict, describing their motion as a “series of inferences, innuendos and unsupported speculation.”
In a separate filing made public Thursday, Trump’s lawyers reiterated their argument that the case should be dismissed based on the Supreme Court’s recent landmark ruling that Trump has presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office.
Last week, prosecutors pushed back against the motion by arguing that Trump’s conduct was “entirely personal” with “no relationship whatsoever to any official duty of the presidency.”
Defense lawyers responded by arguing that the introduction of evidence related to official acts at trial caused an irreparable harm that merits the case be dismissed.
“In this case, a politically motivated district attorney violated that immunity by using official-acts evidence in grand jury proceedings and at trial. Therefore, the case must be dismissed, and the jury’s verdicts must be vacated,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Judge Merchan last month postponed Trump’s July 11 sentencing to Sept. 18 so he can consider Trump’s request to toss his conviction based on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
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