CNN – Politics

Meet the judge presiding over Trump’s criminal arraignment

By Sydney Kashiwaga – April 2, 2023

When Donald Trump enters a New York courtroom on Tuesday, he’ll face a seasoned judge who is no stranger to the former president’s orbit.

Acting New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan has sentenced Trump’s close confident Allen Weisselberg to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and overseen former adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal fraud case.

But Trump’s historic arraignment on Tuesday will perhaps be Merchan’s most high-profile case to date, even after a long career atop the state-level trial court.

Merchan has been described by observers as a “tough” judge, yet one who is fair, no matter who is before him.

Here’s what you need to know.

“A man of his word’

Trump’s arraignment is likely to be a spectacle with a show of law enforcement and with the former president already fanning the flames on social media with his views on Merchan and his indictment.

But in the courthouse, Merchan does not stand for disruptions or delays, attorneys who have appeared before him told CNN, and he’s known to maintain control of his courtroom even when his cases draw considerable attention.

“Judge Merchan was efficient, practical, and listened carefully to what I had to say,” Nicholas Gravante, the attorney who represented Weisselberg in his plea, said via email.

“He was clear in signaling his judicial inclinations, which helped me tremendously in giving Mr. Weisselberg informed legal advice. Judge Merchan was always well-prepared, accessible, and – most importantly in the Weisselberg matter – a man of his word. He treated me and my colleagues with the utmost respect, both in open court and behind closed doors.”

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a private practice attorney who previously worked as the chief assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, supervising cases Merchan presided over, echoed that sentiment.

“[Merchan] doesn’t let the prosecutors or the defendants create any issues in his courtroom. He doesn’t let a media circus or any other kind of circus happen. I don’t think Donald Trump attacking him and threatening him is going to bode very well for him in the courtroom,” Agnifilo said.

“The judge is the kind of judge where he will ignore it and not hold it against Donald Trump. He’s not vindictive in any way like that.”

‘Tough’ but ‘compassionate’

Merchan showed some of his tough side when Weisselberg was sentenced, telling the former Trump associate that if he had not already promised him a five-month sentence, he would have handed him a “much greater” sentence after having listened to evidence at trial.

When he presided over Bannon’s criminal fraud case, Merchan chastised the former Trump aide’s new team of attorneys for delaying the case when they asked for more time to review new evidence.

In addition to the Trump cases, Merchan has also presided over other high-profile cases, including the “soccer mom madam” trial, in which he set a $2 million bond for suburban mom Anna Gristina, who was charged with running a $2,000-an-hour escort service for the wealthy, Bloomberg News reported.

Merchan also handed a 25-years-to-life sentence to a Senegalese man who raped and murdered his girlfriend.

Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore said during an interview Friday on CNN that Merchan was “not easy” on him when he tried a case before him, but echoed that the judge likely will be fair.

“I’ve tried a case in front of him before. He could be tough. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be something that’s going to change his ability to evaluate the facts and the law in this case,” Parlatore said.

Merchan, however, is also credited by his peers for having helped create the Manhattan Mental Health Court, which he often presides over and where he has earned a reputation for “compassionate” rulings that give defendants second chances.

“I watched a colleague of mine try a shooting case where someone got shot, so he’s able to try those very serious violent crimes and then switch,” said Brendan Tracy, a criminal defense attorney who previously served as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

“Maybe someone who was a serial shoplifter and then charged with grand larceny and is in mental health treatment court because they had mental health issues, he was able to handle the wide range of cases and do them all fairly,” Tracy added.

Still, Earl Ward, a trial attorney and chair of public defender nonprofit The Bronx Defenders, said that having watched Merchan preside over cases in the Mental Health Court, the judge often sided with prosecutors.

“He’s fair and his rulings are consistent with the law, but if it’s a close call, his reputation is that he lands on the prosecution’s side,” Ward said.

Early career

Merchan launched his legal career in 1994 when he started off as an assistant district attorney in the trial division in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Several years later, he moved on to the state attorney general’s office, where he worked on cases in Long Island.

In 2006, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then a Republican, appointed Merchan to Family Court in the Bronx, and Democratic Gov. David Paterson appointed him to the New York State Court of Claims in 2009, the same year he began serving as an acting New York Supreme Court Judge.

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Merchan emigrated to the United States at the age of 6 and grew up in the New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens, according to a New York Times profile of the judge. He was the first in his family to go to college.

Merchan initially studied business at Baruch College in New York before he dropped out of school to go work only to return several years later to finish school so that he could get his law degree, the Times reported.

He eventually received his law degree from Hofstra University.

CNN’s Kara Scannell and Lauren del Valle contributed to this report.

Related:

NPR – Law

What to know about Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Trump’s criminal case

Joe Hernandez – April 2, 2023

Manhattan Criminal Court is seen in New York on Friday.Yuki Iwamura/AP

Now that former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in connection to a hush-money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, attention will no doubt turn to his arraignment and potential trial.

The judge handling the unusual and historic case is Juan Manuel Merchan, a veteran of the New York court system who has spent more than 15 years on the bench and is no stranger to high-profile prosecutions — particularly those involving Trump and his associates.

This is perhaps Merchan’s most noteworthy case yet, as it’s the first time that a former U.S. president has ever been charged with a crime.

Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, is expected to appear in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday for his arraignment.

The former president has already aired his opinion about the judge presiding over his case, saying in a post on Truth Social last week that Merchan “hates me” and that the judge “railroaded” Trump’s former chief financial officer into pleading guilty in a tax fraud case.

Merchan has overseen other cases related to Trump

Last year, Merchan oversaw the closely watched criminal tax fraud case against Trump’s company, which was ultimately found guilty by a Manhattan jury. Trump himself was not a defendant in that case.

Two business entities controlled by Trump were found guilty of 17 counts of tax fraud and falsifying business records and were ordered to pay the maximum penalty of $1.61 million.

During the proceedings, Merchan shut down the suggestion from the Trump Organization’s legal team that the case was a politically motivated prosecution against the former president and told attorneys to focus on the specific charges, CBS News reported.

“I will not allow you in any way to bring up a selective prosecution claim, or claim this is some sort of novel prosecution,” Merchan said.

Former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty in the case and served as a star witness for the prosecution. Merchan sentenced him to five months in prison, and the judge said he would have handed down a harsher sentence if he hadn’t already agreed to the plea deal, Politico reported.

Merchan is also overseeing a criminal case against former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who’s facing fraud and money laundering charges related to a former charity that promised to help build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty.

Merchan is a veteran of the New York legal system

According to the New York Law Journal, Merchan has been an acting justice of the New York Supreme Court since 2009.Sponsor Message

“He’s a serious jurist, smart and even tempered,” Manhattan defense attorney Ron Kuby told NBC News. “He’s not one of those judges who yells at lawyers, and is characterized as a no-nonsense judge. But he’s always in control of the courtroom.”

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a lawyer who previously worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office supervising cases Merchan oversaw, told CNN that Trump likely wouldn’t help his case by publicly criticizing the judge.

Merchan “doesn’t let the prosecutors or the defendants create any issues in his courtroom. He doesn’t let a media circus or any other kind of circus happen. I don’t think Donald Trump attacking him and threatening him is going to bode very well for him in the courtroom,” Agnifilo said.

“The judge is the kind of judge where he will ignore it and not hold it against Donald Trump. He’s not vindictive in any way like that.”

Merchan was previously a family court judge, a New York assistant attorney general and an assistant district attorney for New York County.

He graduated from Baruch College in 1990 and earned his law degree from Hofstra University in 1994.

Daily Beast

Inside Trump’s Risky Plan to Fight the Stormy Daniels Hush-Money Case

Jose Pagliery, Roger Sollenberger – March 31, 2023

Finally faced with an actual criminal indictment, former President Donald Trump is settling on a familiar—if contradictory—defense strategy: Blame his previous lawyer, and say he would have done it anyway.

There’s just one problem: The indictment might be more sprawling than just the Stormy Daniels hush money payments that Trump’s team has claimed it was expecting for months.

On Thursday, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump—something he immediately characterized as “Political Persecution and Election Interference.”

The historic move capped a years-long local investigation involving those secret payments to silence a porn star from outing their sexual affair and potentially tanking his 2016 presidential campaign. While new reporting suggests that the Daniels case may not represent the full scope of charges—reportedly running more than 30 counts—that particular item largely hinges on the account of a less than reliable narrator.

That would be Trump’s longtime self-described “fixer,” Michael Cohen, who helped negotiate two nondisclosure agreements during the 2016 election, coordinated the $130,000 payment to Daniels, and got handsomely reimbursed through the Trump Organization.

Michael Cohen Says Trump Indictment Is ‘Just the Beginning’

But in the weeks before Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors took the decisive step to criminally charge the former president, Trump’s defense lawyers cemented a defense that rested mainly on two points, according to a source familiar with their internal discussions.

First, it’s his lawyer’s fault. And second, Trump would have done it anyway.

The first affirmative defense exploits Cohen’s weaknesses as a truthful witness. According to the source, Trump’s team is prepared to argue that the real estate mogul was merely relying on his lawyer’s advice. Trump himself has been shopping around that theory since at least 2018, when he was still at the White House.

“I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called ‘advice of counsel,’ and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid,” he tweeted in December 2018.

At first blush, the “advice of counsel” defense makes sense, because the justice system gives great deference to lawyers and the advice they give. But it’s rarely invoked, because doing so allows investigators to pierce what are normally private attorney-client communications, according to the American Bar Association. And the defense doesn’t hold up if both the lawyer and client know what they’re doing is illegal, something known as the crime-fraud exception.

A similar “advice of counsel” defense failed to save Trump’s former White House adviser, Steve Bannon, from being convicted at trial last year for ignoring a congressional subpoena. And the Trump train has rammed head-on into the crime-fraud exception before. Last year, a California federal judge decided that Trump “more likely than not” committed a felony alongside lawyer John Eastman when they attempted to impede Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. And earlier this month, another federal judge invoked the same exception when she forced Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to comply with a grand jury subpoena involving the Mar-a-Lago document dispute.

Stormy Daniels Pops Champagne to Celebrate Trump Indictment

But that might not get New York County prosecutors very far in Trump’s case, because he rarely puts things in writing—leaving investigators with potentially very little evidence. (Though Cohen does have hush money discussions on tape.)

But investigators do have access to one potentially incriminating written document. That would be the sworn affidavit Trump submitted in 2000 in response to a Federal Election Commission investigation. That probe focused on his role in alleged campaign finance violations strikingly similar to the issues reportedly at play in the Manhattan case—alleged straw donations and in-kind corporate contributions—and Trump’s affidavit demonstrated a deep understanding of those laws.

Still, prosecutors would reportedly be relying in large part on the account of Cohen himself, who appeared as a witness before the Manhattan grand jury several times in the run-up to the indictment.

Trump’s lawyers could benefit from the tell-all memoir written by a former prosecutor on that team, Mark Pomerantz, who wrote about a Feb. 9, 2022, meeting in which DA Alvin Bragg Jr. showed deep reservations about ever relying on testimony by Cohen, who had been sentenced to prison for lying to Congress years earlier.

“At one point during the meeting, Alvin commented that he ‘could not see a world’ in which we would indict Trump and call Michael Cohen as a prosecution witness,” Pomerantz wrote.

But that raises the question of why Bragg pulled the hard 180—aggressively pursuing a case hinging on a witness he was so adamantly opposed to less than a year prior. The report of a much more sprawling indictment suggests Bragg has more on his mind.

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the office said that four people who were present at the meeting disputed Pomerantz’s recollection.

It’s also easy to forget why Cohen lied: to protect his former boss about the fact that there were business discussions to build a Moscow Trump Tower in Russia well into the closing months of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump’s second affirmative defense addresses the legality of the payments to begin with, according to the person familiar with Trump’s legal strategy. The former president plans to assert that the hush money payment did not have to be reported to the FEC, the person told The Daily Beast, because Trump would have made the payment anyway—regardless of whether he was running for office at the time.

‘Witch Hunt Bullshit’: GOP Lawmakers Quickly Side With Trump on Indictment

The idea here is that Stormy Daniels going public about her claims that she had sex with Trump one night in 2006—when he was still married to his current wife, Melania—would have threatened their marriage and maybe even his public standing as a businessman.

Trump addressed this himself in three tweets in May 2018.

“The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair,” he stated. He added that such agreements are “very common among celebrities and people of wealth,” and—somewhat perplexingly—emphasized that “money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll[sic] in this transaction.”

That defense relies on the FEC rules regarding “personal use” of donor money during a political campaign. Federal law forbids candidates from using campaign funds to pay for things like personal lawsuits or expensive suits, which, Trump’s team argues, would extend to the hush money expenses by claiming they’re private and personal.

In other words, Trump’s lawyers are running on the theory that Trump would have paid Daniels anyway, “irrespective” of whether it would also help his presidential campaign.

But that defense has its drawbacks.

First, Trump would essentially be asserting that either federal prosecutors or a federal judge should have rejected Cohen’s own guilty plea to this same campaign finance crime, if it was never a crime to begin with. (That plea came three months after Trump’s tweets.)

Second, as The Daily Beast previously reported, campaign finance experts say that the hush money payments to Daniels and former Playboy “Playmate” Karen McDougal were clearly intended to influence the 2016 election. In fact, when Daniels tried to sell her story to the press years earlier, that was also in the political context of Trump’s candidacy—the potential 2012 bid he was publicly exploring at the time.

In 2018, the FEC’s Office of General Counsel found reason to believe that the payments were in fact unlawful, and that Trump, his campaign, and his company should be investigated. However, the Republican commissioners blocked that investigation—as they have done for every one of the dozens of complaints against Trump—citing the fact that Cohen, but not Trump, had already been held accountable, and the statute of limitations was running out.

The Storm Arrives: NYC Grand Jury Indicts Donald Trump

The statute of limitations argument was also in large part due to Trump’s own presidential powers. He refused to appoint a replacement commissioner, depriving the FEC of its quorum for more than a year—meaning the commission couldn’t make any decisions about enforcement actions during that time.

But while the FEC Republicans let Trump slide for the Daniels payments, they saw fit to fine the National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., over its unlawful hush money payment to McDougal, which involved the same infractions. That decision also overlooked prosecutors’ agreements with both Cohen and AMI.

On Thursday, hours before the news broke about the sealed indictment, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bragg’s investigation had focused more intently on the McDougal payments than was previously known. Trump’s team hasn’t tried to attack those payments—which the FEC found unlawful—the way they have with Daniels. In fact, it’s unclear from AMI’s non-prosecution agreement whether they were or were not ultimately reimbursed for those payments. Trump told Fox News in 2018 that he personally footed that bill. Meanwhile, Cohen’s memoir claims that Trump actually stiffed AMI executive David Pecker—which is why he wouldn’t pay for the Stormy Daniels silencing deal.

But, as Cohen himself told The Daily Beast in a statement on Thursday, “It is better for the case to let the indictment speak for itself.”

Hours later, CNN reported that the indictment wasn’t nearly as narrowly focused on the hush money payments as Trump’s legal team and news reports have made it seem. Instead, CNN reported, the grand jury has brought more than 30 counts against the former president, including for business fraud. This suggests that the “novel legal theory” talking point, which Trumpworld has promoted, may not be Bragg’s silver bullet after all.

To that point, Bragg’s office might be centering the case against Trump on its already extensive investigation into his business dealings, which have already yielded a court victory. If prosecutors can tie the hush money payments to business, financial, or tax fraud at the state level, they can sidestep the federal question altogether.

Shortly after the New York County DA’s Office filed the indictment in Manhattan criminal court, Trump’s two lawyers in this case issued a statement defending their client.

“President Trump has been indicted. He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court,” Susan Necheles and Joe Tacopina said.

HuffPost

Rachel Maddow Names The 1 Thing To Prepare For In Donald Trump Legal Proceedings

Lee Moran – March 31, 2023

Rachel Maddow jumped into the MSNBC anchor chair on Thursday — when she’s not normally on air — to cover the indictment of former President Donald Trump and to warn people what they may not expect in the historic prosecution.

“I do think there’s one thing we all need to be preparing for here that we are maybe not prepared for, and that is what I think is the very high probability that this is going to be boring,” she said. “I’m not sure we’re prepared for that.”

“I’m not sure either side ideologically is prepared for that. I don’t think the punditocracy is prepared for that. I don’t think you and I are prepared for that,” Maddow continued.

Maddow acknowledged Trump’s indictment for his role in a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels “feels like really big news” and “really big news feels like it has a lot of momentum.”

“But as far as I can tell, this is about a legal proceeding starting,” she explained. “And if you look at the kind of legal proceeding this is going to be, I think we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that, A: This might go on for a really long time, and it might go on where the incremental additional news on this news story each day is something that feels like reading the small print on the back of a lottery ticket or even your car rental insurance waiver.”

“This might really be boring,” Maddow repeated.

The case against Trump “isn’t something that is unprecedented in the world of criminal law,” she added. “The actual adjudication of cases like this one, as much as we know about what kind of case this is, before the indictment’s unsealed, the actual adjudication of cases like this is often a very boring thing.”