Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg urged Justice Juan Merchan to deny former President Donald Trump's third request that he recuse himself, calling it "vexatious and frivolous," the Washington Examiner reported.
Bragg's office on Thursday answered Trump's petition from the day before that Merchan recuse himself over his daughter's "long-standing relationship with [Kamala] Harris, including work for political campaigns." Trump's legal team maintained that now that Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee, Loren Merchan's work for Authentic Campaigns, a top Democratic marketing firm, created a conflict of interest for the judge.
Judge Merchan, who presided over Trump's business records case, which resulted in a conviction on 34 felony counts, denied the previous two petitions from Trump on the same grounds.
"Defendant's motion to renew is a vexatious and frivolous attempt to relitigate an issue that was twice addressed by this Court," Bragg's prosecutors wrote Thursday, the Examiner reported. "Indeed, defendant rests his latest motion on the same affirmation he presented in support of his April 3 motion. This regurgitated showing does not come close to meeting the standard to renew."
This time, Trump's attorneys took aim at the $12 million paid to Loren Merchan's firm by Democrats and progressive politicians this calendar year. A partner of Loren Merchan's leads a group called "White Dudes for Harris," which has generated millions for the vice president's campaign, Trump's lawyer wrote.
Bragg's prosecutors dismissed the links.
"No amount of overheated, hyperbolic rhetoric can cure the fatal defects in defendant's ongoing effort to impugn the fairness of these proceedings and the impartiality of this Court. The motion for recusal should be denied for a third time," they concluded.