Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, where Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sits as chairman, are targeting a political firm working in digital strategy in connection to the felony criminal case against Donald Trump in New York City that culminated earlier this year in a jury conviction on all counts.
A daughter of the judge in Trump’s case has worked at the targeted firm, Authentic Campaigns Inc., and the Judiciary Republicans are questioning Judge Juan Merchan’s “impartiality” while handling the case.
Within the case itself, the Trump legal team already pushed Merchan for his recusal — meaning exit — three times, coming up short in every instance.
The judge himself consulted a separate authority in New York state for guidance on questions related to his daughter’s work, and they found plenty of separation between the case and that now subpoenaed political strategy firm. Merchan obtained input from New York’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics who said, as quoted by the judge, that the “matter currently before the judge does not involve either the judge’s relative or the relative’s business, whether directly or indirectly.”
In short, there is no apparent evidence of a direct connection between the company and the court case. President Joe Biden did not, in any way, direct the furtherance of the proceedings that ensnared Trump, and there’s no apparent indication of the case moving forward having uplifted separate interests of the judge and his family.
“The House Judiciary Committee has been told plainly that the digital strategy firm with which Judge Merchan’s daughter works has not done any work for the Biden or Harris campaigns this cycle and that she herself does not work with any relevant political clients. They’ve also been told about the death threats to her and the firm’s founder. Yet today, they subpoenaed the firm, as if it, as opposed to the committee or Trump himself, has engaged in misconduct,” said MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin.
