A New York judge has refused for the third time to recuse himself from the case in which Donald Trump was convicted of hush money payments to a porn star, rejecting the former US president’s claim of a conflict of interest in the judge’s daughter’s work at a political consulting firm.
Repeating his actions in April and August 2023, Judge Juan Merchan, in a ruling issued on Wednesday, rejected a request from Trump’s lawyers to recuse himself from the first case involving criminal charges against a former US president.
Merchhan is scheduled to rule on Trump on September 18, according to Reuters.
“Defendant has presented nothing new for this Court to consider. Counsel has merely repeated arguments that this Court and higher courts have already rejected” and that were “riddled with fallacies and baseless allegations,” Merchan wrote in his ruling, dated August 13.
A jury convicted Trump on May 30 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payment his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels to avoid a sex scandal ahead of the 2016 U.S. election.
Two months later, his lawyers filed their third motion to have Merchan step down, arguing that his daughter’s work for a political consulting firm whose clients included Democratic campaigns, including current Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, posed a conflict of interest.
Falsifying business records is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, but sentences such as fines or probation are more common for others convicted of the crime.
Trump’s lawyers separately asked the judge to overturn his conviction in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in July that grants former presidents broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken while in office. Mershan said he would decide on Trump's arguments by Sept. 16.
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