House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., has filed a misconduct complaint against Judge Juan Merchan, whom she says was not "randomly" selected to preside over former President Donald Trump's legal expense trial in New York City.
In a letter sent to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct on Tuesday, Stefanik requested the panel determine whether the appointment of Merchan violates the Uniform Rules for New York State Trial Courts, The Washington Examiner reported.
Those rules dictate that judges must be assigned "pursuant to a method of random selection authorized by the Chief Administrator," but Stefanik says this is being ignored to convict Trump.
"One cannot help but suspect that the 'random selection' at work in the assignment of Acting Justice Merchan, a Democrat Party donor, to these cases involving prominent Republicans, is in fact not random at all," Stefanik wrote in the letter, which was also sent to Kay-Ann Porter Campbell, the inspector general of the New York State Unified Court System. "If Acting Justice Merchan or any other Justices of the Court are found to have violated these rules, I would hope that the Commission would subject them to the required discipline."
In the misconduct complaint, the representative questions what she refers to as the "repeated assignment of Acting Justice Juan Merchan, a Democrat Party donor, to criminal cases related to President Donald J. Trump and his allies."
Stefanik cited Merchan's involvement in at least two other cases related to the former president, including the Trump Organization's tax fraud trial in 2022 as well as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's criminal fraud case.
"If justices were indeed being randomly assigned in the Criminal Term, the probability of two specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is quite low, and the probability of three specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is infinitesimally small," Stefanik wrote. "And yet, we see Acting Justice Merchan on all three cases."
It is not clear whether any action will be taken on the complaint as Judge Merchan is giving his instructions to the jury in the trial of the former president.
Last week, Rep. Stefanik filed an ethics complaint against Judge Merchan, insisting he recuse himself from the trial because his daughter, Loren, does consulting work for Democrats. Stefanik is a staunch Trump supporter and has been mentioned as one of his potential vice president picks.
Stefanik has filed five formal complaints against judges and prosecutors involved in cases against Trump, according to Axios.