Judge Not, You're Not a Good Judge

Corrupt Juan Merchan is Out to Make His Daughter One Rich Woman

Judge Juan Merchan was born in Colombia as the son of a military officer, emigrated to New York as a child, and, unfortunately for us, he became a citizen and never left.

He is currently presiding over the sham trial of Donald J. Trump in New York. This trial is essentially about a bookkeeping error—if it was even an error. Way back when Donald Trump was a billionaire playboy and real estate mogul, he encountered an ambitious young grifter named Stormy Daniels. The media calls her a “porn star” but that implies some sort of professional status. It would be more accurate to just say she worked in the porn industry, because no one would know her name if it wasn’t for Donald Trump.

Ms. Daniels opted to use her sex-trade worker name in the court case. Her real name is Stephanie Clifford, but as “Stormy Daniels,” she was practically handing out business cards in the court room. She said in writing and more than once that she had never had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump. She has attested that she signed such a statement, although at various other times she claimed she did have a sexual relationship with him. None of this matters, because at issue is the fact that Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, initiated a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) with her not to talk about an affair with Trump—whether it happened or not is irrelevant.

NDAs are not illegal. They are common in business and often used in dispute resolution. Congress has a $17M fund (I think) reserved to pay out NDAs for people who claim to be harassed by Congress people. (I say I think it’s $17M—it’s taxpayer money but they keep this top-secret.)

When it comes to an NDA, in some cases, two parties both sign a mutual agreement not to air dirty laundry in public; no money changes hands. In the case of Ms. Daniels, she wanted to paid for her signature on the NDA and Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 of his own money (he took out a home equity loan!) This money was then given to Ms. Daniels who was supposed to honor the NDA. Well, she should give the money back because she has been squawking about having had sex and having not had sex with Trump for years.

So far, as tawdry and disgusting as this may seem, nobody has broken any laws.

Michael Cohen then reimbursed himself for the $130,000 by taking funds from the Trump campaign. This was in 2016 when Trump was campaigning for the Presidency and everybody said he was going to lose. The invoice—to compensate attorney Michael Cohen—was entered into the accounting as a “legal expense.” Bear in mind, this happened nearly 8 years ago.

The state of New York (where this took place) says it wasn’t a legal expense at all, it should have been accounted for as a “campaign donation.” It is being argued that paying “hush money” (that’s what they’re calling it—it’s an NDA) benefited Trump’s campaign and was therefore a campaign donation. Not calling it a campaign donation allegedly makes it a campaign fund violation.

Now a normal person (which are in short supply in The Empire State) could see how a payment to a lawyer (Michael Cohen) might be considered a “legal expense.” I think that’s fair and it’s certainly no big stretch of the imagination to see how—even if it were an error—it might get entered into the records that way.

In fact, in busy presidential campaigns, this stuff happens. It happened to Hillary Clinton, too!

When Hillary Clinton bought a phony dossier that claimed Trump cavorted around with Russian prostitutes in some Russian hotel, she had the Perkins Coie law firm and the Democrat National Committee (DNC) handle the finances to pay off the people she hired to come up with some wild fictional stories about Trump. When Perkins Coie sent a bill over to Hillary Clinton for the creation of this phony dossier, Hillary’s campaign paid them and entered the payment as a “legal expense.” After all, they paid Perkins Coie legal expenses all of the time—they are a pre-eminent Democrat law firm. Hillary got caught and was told that this particular payment to Perkins Coie should have been labeled a “campaign donation.” Hillary did not fight it; her people made the change. Her campaign was fined $100,000 or so on a million-dollar accounting error. She paid the bill (or rather the DNC or somebody did) and that was that.

The Trump matter is similar—a payment was recorded as a “legal expense” and arguably it should have been a “campaign expense.” (The case is weaker with Trump than Clinton because Trump may have had any number of reasons to want Ms. Daniels to go away, including personal and familial ones, whereas Hillary had no reason to commission a million-dollar smear dossier against Trump except to help her electoral efforts.)

But notice that these two highly similar cases against two candidates who literally ran against each other in this same campaign were handled differently? Trump is facing prison on 34 felonies, while Hillary was quietly fined about 10% of the payment. (If Trump were treated the same way as Hillary, he could just pay $13,000 and go home.)

Cue the sinister music. The villain is about to enter. All rise, it’s Judge Juan Merchan.

Juan Merchan is no ordinary judge. First of all, he should recuse himself because he has already presided over a criminal case against the Trump Organization for tax fraud and he presided over Allen Weissenberg’s trial. Weisselberg was a former financial officer of the Trump organization. He has demonstrated nothing but animus against Trump. The mainstream media (MSM) calls Merchan “stern but compassionate” but admits that there are people around calling him a Trump hater. That is putting it mildly.

Juan Merchan immediately imposed a gag order on Trump because if there’s one thing Trump does, it’s talk. The problem is that gag orders are traditionally reserved for the prosecution. In other words, the gag is to make sure the prosecutors don’t run down the Defendant outside of court. Most courts allow due process for the Defendant, meaning, as the name implies, he or she gets to “defend” himself. This is the only case I can think of where the Defendant is gagged and the prosecution runs free. It’s like a boxing match where the referee orders one guy’s hands tied behind his back.

Juan Merchan is more activist than jurist. After all, he allowed Ms. Daniels free range on the witness stand over multiple days, going on and on for hour after hour, allowing her to recount specific details about her alleged sexual activities with Trump. This trial has nothing to do with Trump’s relationship to Ms. Daniels beyond the NDA. This is a bookkeeping trial, not a trial about sex. There was no need for Ms. Daniels to even take the stand—she could stipulate that she received $130,000 from Michael Cohen for the NDA. In fact, she did stipulate to it. She did not even need to be in the courtroom. When Hillary got caught with her bookkeeping error, nobody went into the details of her conjuring up a phony-baloney dossier on Trump with salacious details. Yet Juan Merchan wants to know every little sexual detail of Ms. Daniels’ alleged time with Trump. He even allowed the witness to describe the former President’s sexual techniques and endurance in great detail. None of that was relevant and most of it was likely made up. Ms. Daniels has a history of changing her stories to suit her audience.

So why would any competent allow hours and hours of irrelevant porn antics into the trial? These details had no relevance to the charges. Nothing she said on the stand that she did with Trump was illegal. In fact, it is by her own signed document imaginary. So either it’s unsavory and a lie or it’s unsavory and it’s true, but either way, it’s irrelevant. The NDA is the point.

Juan Merchan allowed this testimony to be entered into the record because it’s gross. It’s tawdry. It’s disgusting and seamy and was allowed to go on for hours in Trump’s presence (Trump is required to attend this trial, another weird demand by Juan Merchan). Merchan’s idea is to get some raunchy sound bites to the MSM lapdogs. While New Yorkers generally have a high tolerance for sleaze, Merchan’s game plan was to make sure as much crud sticks to Trump as possible, even if the testimony is 100% irrelevant. And with Ms. Daniels multiple accounts on the record about her relationship to Trump, I would argue that even putting her on the stand was suborning perjury. Somebody ought to tell Merchan you’re not supposed to do that.

Juan Merchan should be not only thrown off the bench for these antics, he should be disbarred. It’s textbook prejudicial to allow salicious but irrelevant testimony to be heard by the jury. It’s textbook subornation of perjury to allow a known liar to take the stand in a case by which she hopes to profit.

But wait! There’s more!

Juan Merchan is compromised because his daughter worked for both Biden and Harris on their political campaigns. Loren Merchan, a big shot Democrat activist, also works for Adam Schiff, the DNC, and her own political organization, Authentic Campaigns. Authentic Campaigns is a political consulting firm for Democrat progressive candidates. This means that Juan Merchan is the father of a Biden-Harris activist. No wonder Juan Merchan needs a gag order! He can’t let Trump tell the world how this is a bogus trial run by a guy who has it out to bring back Trump’s head on a silver platter.

I live in a small town and was once called to jury duty for traffic court. It was a minor case where the Plaintiff was asking less than $500 in damages. As the jury was slowly being selected from a small pool of people (about half were selected at the time), there was a flurry of activity by a couple of clerks bearing clipboards, and we were left to wait about 30 minutes. Now bear in mind, this is a small case in a small court in a small town on a slow day one Texas summer a few years ago. Finally, the clerk came back out and whispered to the attorneys who explained the situation. It seemed the judge who was to preside over this trial knew the Plaintiff. The judge did not know her well—it wasn’t a relative or a business colleague. But he knew her, so he recused himself and they had to scramble to find a new judge who could hear the case that day.

So if we poor deplorables in Flyover Country know that judges should not have relationships with people they are to judge—why is Juan Merchan presiding over a trial against a man both he and his activist daughter loathe? Trump has been the main focus of Loren Merchan’s professional life for years.

But, wait! There’s more! It gets worse.

Two of Loren’s Democrat clients have used stuff from the Trump case in their fundraising emails. This isn’t chump change, they’ve raised together over $100M on the “get Trump” efforts of Juan Merchan. This means that the longer and worse the trial is for Trump, the more little Miss Merchan’s clients can profit—and that means more money for her company and more money in her pocket.

Juan Merchan donated to Biden’s campaign in 2020. His daughter worked for the Biden campaign. Now you can see why Juan Merchan needs a gag order on Trump—we might find out this stuff!

So outrageous has been the behavior that Loren Merchan has posted pictures on social media of her “dream” that Trump will wind up in prison. She has no gag order. She can say what she wants. But if Trump even mentions this, Juan Merchan threatens him with jail and fines him $10,000. Does that sound fair to you?

As long as the trial goes on, Loren Merchan gets richer. Her company Authentic Campaigns is all about destroying Trump, and Daddy is helping. After all, fathers like to help their adult children succeed.

(This is all grounds for appeal, but this trial is not about the verdict—it’s about sullying Trump’s name, wasting his time, depleting his resources, and scaring us that justice is dead and buried in these United States, at least in the Blue states.)