An appeals court hearing has been scheduled on Juan Merchan’s lawfare case against President Donald Trump.
Merchan was the judge in so-called “hush money” case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against Trump over some contractual agreements and payments he made, and provided the appearance of so much bias against Trump that one constitutional expert described the judge as a “tyrant.”
The one-sided jury instructions resulted in 34 convictions against the president, and Merchan then, during sentencing, spent seven minutes complaining about how he was restricted in his sentencing options.
Merchan imposed an “unconditional discharge” on Trump, providing for no fines, jail or probation time while formalizing his status as a convicted felon.
Merchan, whose daughter is a consultant who was making money off of her father’s multiple rulings against Trump, claimed “extraordinary” legal protections handed to the president of the United States required him to hand down a minor sentence that Trump would allegedly not have received without being reelected.
“While one can argue that the trial itself was in many respects somewhat ordinary, the same cannot be said about the circumstances surrounding this sentencing and that is because of the office [Trump] once occupied, and which you will soon occupy again,” Merchan told the president-elect. “To be sure, it is the legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States that are extraordinary, not the occupant of the office. The legal protections, especially within the context of a criminal prosecution, afforded to the office of the president have been laid out by our founders, the Constitution and most recently interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in the matter of Trump versus the United States, which was decided on July 1, 2024.
“As with every other defendant in your position, it is my obligation to consider any and all aggravating and mitigating factors to inform my decision … The considerable, indeed, extraordinary legal protections afforded by the office of the chief executive, is a factor that overrides all others,” the judge continued.
Merchan, in extraordinary fashion, allowed a wide range of inflammatory testimony to come into his courtroom against Trump. The substance of the complaint was that Bragg claimed a $130,000 non-disclosure agreement with former porn actress Stormy Daniels, paid through Trump’s then-lawyer as legal fees, were not legal fees. Bragg claimed that calling legal fees legal fees was “falsifying business records.”
A long list of legal experts charged that the case never should have been created by Bragg. Merchan, in fact, inexplicably told the jurors their verdict didn’t have to be unanimous.
A report from the Washington Examiner reports now that a hearing is scheduled before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
Just over a year after Donald Trump became the first former president to be found guilty of a felony, an appeals court is set to hear the president’s bid to move his case to federal court.
Read more: https://t.co/7eRMb2xqKi pic.twitter.com/ufnkT187eG
— ABC News (@ABC) June 11, 2025
Kash Patel CONFIRMS Judge Juan Merchan
should have never been assigned to
Donald Trump’s case Judge
Merchant’s Daughter’s company
who made $15+ million dollars
from the illicit information pic.twitter.com/b5FMLG7yMw— Jeff pontz (@827js) May 7, 2025
Judge Juan Merchan gave the most bizarre set of jury instructions I have ever heard. They were designed to lead to conviction. If this isn’t reversible error, reversible error does not exist.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 30, 2024
Trump’s lawyers are seeking to have the claims moved into a federal court, rather than state, and have explained to the appeals court the prosecution was not only politically motivated, but also constitutionally flawed.
Previously, Alvin Hellerstein, a federal judge, twice rejected similar requests, but Trump’s team has explained those rulings are outdated in light of the Supreme Court’s decision granting Trump presumptive immunity for official acts.
Leading the charge this time is Jeff Wall, a former acting solicitor general and Supreme Court advocate with Sullivan & Cromwell, said is pointing out that “the case should have been removed from state court under the federal officer removal statute.” He cited Supremacy Clause concerns and said Trump was targeted by ‘hostile local officials,’” to include Bragg and Merchan.
Trump’s lawyers also cite Merchan’s aggressive bias, including his gag order, his contempt claims, and his donation to a Democrat cause.
The payment was for Daniels’ silence about an alleged affair, which Trump has confirmed never happened.
Trump said the payments were part of a standard legal retainer and denied knowing of any unlawful scheme.
The “offenses” actually were misdemeanors until Bragg theorized they were part of the furtherance of another, unidentified, crime, and that made them felonies.
Experts called Bragg’s machinations “legally creative.”
Other parts of the Democrats’ lawfare against Trump, indictments over the Jan. 6, riot and a dispute over classified documents, were dropped when he was re-elected.
And an organized crime case against him, created by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, collapsed when she was removed from the case over her conflicts and behaviors.
Yet another case, a wild civil claim from New York Attorney General Letitia James, which resulted in a penalty from a leftist New York judge of hundreds of millions of dollars, also remains on appeal.
James claimed Trump committed fraud in his business dealings with lenders. Those lenders testified in court they were happy doing business with Trump, didn’t lose any money, and wanted to do additional business, but Arthur Engoron, the judge, handed down the massive penalty anyway.
Ironically, James herself now is facing the possibility of criminal trial, conviction and sentencing for committing fraud on mortgage documents.
Trump has not been silent about the lawfare:
Trump continued, “….I am the only Political Opponent in American History not allowed to defend myself – A despicable First Amendment Violation! Merchan took the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt, that, according to all Legal Scholars, including Jonathan Turley, Elie Honig, Andy McCarthy, Alan Dershowitz, Gregg Jarrett, David Rivkin, Elizabeth Price Foley, Katie and Andy Cherkasky, Paul Ingrassia, and many others, is a nonexistent case, barred by the Statute of Limitations, and should have never been brought and, through his fraud and misconduct, gave it a semblance of ‘life.’ While Deranged Jack Smith was sent packing back to The Hague after losing all of his politically manufactured cases against me, Merchan, who is far worse and even more corrupt than Smith in his fight for my hopeless political opponents, just cannot let go of this charade. Is it because of his conflicts and relations that he keeps breaking the Law? This has to stop! It is time to end the Lawfare once and for all, so we can come together as one Nation and, Make America Great Again.”
Experts have noted the trial itself was “replete with layers of reversible error.”
…He still has to rule on the general challenge over errors committed at trial. Some of us view the case as replete with layers of reversible error. https://t.co/o4ZJdNwfb7 However, Merchan was never viewed as likely to second guess his prior rulings…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 17, 2024
A report at Fox News said Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus, “called out” Merchan for “outrageous” rulings against Trump.
He told “The Brian Kilmeade Show” host Brian Kilmeade that Merchan is a “tyrant” for threatening to strike the testimony of defense witness Bob Costello, who expressed disbelief at some of Merchan’s anti-Trump rulings.
Dershowitz charged, “I’ve been in courthouses in every part of the world and in China, in Russia, in Ukraine, in Israel. I’ve been all over. I’ve never seen a spectacle like this. And that’s why it should have been on television, so the American public could see how outrageous this judge is. And CNN just does his bidding. CNN lies, lies through their teeth about what happened in court yesterday between Judge Merchan and Bob Costello. Bob Costello testifies, Merchan rules against him at every point, keeps out his testimony, makes outrageous rulings that any first-year student taking evidence would know was wrong.”
He continued, “And Bob Costello does what I did: He rolled his eyes. And I rolled my eyes, I said, I couldn’t believe the judge was making these rulings. And the judge, thinking he’s a tyrant, clears the courtroom, throws out everybody from the media. For some reason, they allowed me to stay, and I watched as the judge berated him. And the judge said something I have never seen in a courtroom in my history, 60 years. He threatened to strike the testimony of the main witness for the defendant because of punishment of the witness for staring at the judge. Can you imagine the violation of the Sixth Amendment? The Sixth Amendment allows any defendant to confront witnesses and to present evidence in his defense. Can you imagine if this judge had actually struck the testimony of Bob Costello? It would result in an automatic mistrial, new trial, and a verdict against the prosecution. The judge was bluffing. He ought to be disciplined for making that threat because the threat was an idle threat. He obviously didn’t act on it. …”:
