Harris accused of giving money to daughter of judge overseeing Trump case

By 
 September 7, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris now stands accused of giving money to the firm that employs the daughter of New York Justice Juan Merchan.

The accusation comes from U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). She posted the details on her X account on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024.

If true, this is a massive conflict of interest, because Merchan is the judge who is currently overseeing the so-called hush-money case that has been brought against Trump in New York. Merchan is the one who will determine whether or not to sentence Trump to prison.

The details

According to Stefanik, on Friday, she filed an ethics complaint against Merchan with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

In the complaint, Stefanik, in part, wrote:

On August 20, 2024, Vice President Harris’s campaign submitted its first Federal Election Commission (FEC) report that documented expenses and donations through July 31, 2024. In the report, specifically on Form 3P, line 232, a July 30, 2024, disbursement appears in the amount of $468.00 from Vice President Harris’s campaign to Authentic Campaigns Inc. (Authentic) for web hosting services. This indicates that one of the very first things that Harris did upon taking over the Biden campaign infrastructure is to hire this firm, Authentic.

Stefanik goes on to explain how this firm employs Merchan's daughter, Loren Merchan.

She wrote:

Authentic is a digital consulting and marketing firm that services Democrat candidates. Loren Merchan, Justice Merchan’s daughter, is its president. Vice President Harris changed web hosting companies from AWS to Authentic immediately after becoming the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee.

No one knew about this until just recently, according to Stefanik, because, "the FEC report’s filing did not occur until August 20, nearly a month after the Harris campaign and Authentic had begun doing business."

A clear conflict of interest

This is about as clear and as obvious a conflict of interest as a judge could have.

As Stefanik put it:

This is a clear violation of the New York State Judicial Code of Conduct which dictates that a judge must recuse from a case where a relative up to and including the sixth degree has a financial interest in the outcome of the case.

Merchan, at the time of this writing, has not responded to the allegations.

He also has not recused himself from the case.

Instead, he is planning on sentencing Trump, in the "hush-money" case, in late November.

" A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature."
Thomas Jefferson