(Headline USA) A Twitter account appearing to belong to the daughter of New York Judge Juan Merchan showed a photo illustration of an imprisoned Donald Trump as its profile picture Wednesday morning. It was later changed.
BREAKING: Judge Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, just BLOCKED ME on X and locked her account after I exposed her profile picture that has President Trump behind bars.
Her father is overseeing President Trump’s “hush money” trial in NYC and Loren herself works for the… https://t.co/soPrzWFRs8 pic.twitter.com/qn8fy6cAVb
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) March 27, 2024
Loren Merchan’s consulting firm had linked to that same account in a previous social media post, appearing to validate the account’s authenticity.
Trump did not link to the purported photo, but slammed the judge on Truth Social for hypocritically imposing a gag order ahead of his April 15 trial, suggesting his daughter’s partisan activism was indicative of a conflict of interests, much as Democrats have attempted to claim about Ginni Thomas, the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“So, let me get this straight,” Trump wrote, “the Judge’s daughter is allowed to post pictures of her ‘dream’ of putting me in jail … but I am not allowed to talk about the attacks against me, and the Lunatics trying to destroy my life and prevent me from winning the 2024 Presidential Election, which I am dominating?”
“Maybe the Judge is such a hater because his daughter makes money by working to ‘Get Trump’ and when he rules against me over and over again, he is making her company, and her, richer and richer,” Trump continued. “How can this be allowed?”
Merchan’s daughter, whose firm has worked on campaigns for President Joe Biden and other Democrats. It currently lists among its clients Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
Juan Merchan also has been linked to previous donations to Democrat causes and candidates but thus far has refused to recuse himself from the case.
According to FEC filings, Judge Juan Merchan donated 3x to ActBlue:
– 1st donation was earmarked for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign
– 2nd was pledged to a PAC that rallies voter turnout for Dems
– 3rd went to Stop Republicans, which is dedicated to “resisting” Trump & the GOP pic.twitter.com/LcQfDW0fb5— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) April 4, 2023
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, posted that the gag order issued Tuesday was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional.”
He said Judge Merchan was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals and urged him to step aside from the case.
The gag order, which was requested by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, bars Trump from either making or directing other people to make public statements on his behalf about jurors and potential witnesses in the trial.
That includes his lawyer turned nemesis Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels. It also prohibits any statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff, prosecution team or their families.
It does not bar comments about Merchan or his family, nor does it prohibit criticism of Bragg, the George-Soros-backed Democrat whose office is prosecuting Trump.
Trump’s three-part Truth Social post was his first reaction to the gag order. In it, he again reupped his call for Merchan to recuse himself due to the conflicts of interest that both he and his daughter have made evident.
“The Judge has to recuse himself immediately, and right the wrong committed by not doing so last year,” Trump wrote Wednesday. “If the Biased and Conflicted Judge is allowed to stay on this Sham ‘Case,’ it will be another sad example of our Country becoming a Banana Republic, not the America we used to know and love.”
The criticism echoed arguments his lawyers made last year, when Merchan was first assigned to the case and his Democrat ties quickly became apparent.
Merchan insisted then that a state court ethics panel found that Loren Merchan’s work had no bearing on his impartiality.
The judge claimed in a ruling last September that he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial” and that Trump’s lawyers had “failed to demonstrate that there exists concrete, or even realistic reasons for recusal to be appropriate, much less required on these grounds.”
In a recent interview, Merchan told the Associated Press, that he and his staff were working diligently to prepare for the historic first trial of a former president.
“There’s no agenda here,” Merchan claimed. “We want to follow the law. We want justice to be done.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
