The judge supervises Donald TrumpNew York’s hush money campaign funding trial has been warned by a state ethics panel about two small donations to Democratic-leaning groups in 2020.
The warning is likely to be used by Trump and his lawyers as evidence of his claims that the New York trial, now in its fourth week, by Judge Juan Merchan was unfairly tried along partisan political lines.
But the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct did not reveal who filed the complaint against Merchan stemming from a $35 donation to the Democratic group ActBlue, including $15 earmarked for Biden as president and $10 each for Progressive Turnout Project and Stop Republicans.
Related: Trump’s hush money trial: Here’s what’s happened in the case so far
“Judge Merchan said the complaint, from more than a year ago, was dismissed with a warning in July,” state Judicial Administration spokesman Al Baker said in response to a Reuters inquiry.
The committee is of the opinion that contributions violate the rules on prohibited political activities. In its 2024 annual report, the body said several dozen judges had apparently made prohibited contributions in recent years, mainly to candidates for federal office.
Judges are prohibited from contributing to campaigns, including for federal office.
“Like so much of the misconduct the committee encounters, making a prohibited political contribution is a self-inflicted error,” the committee wrote in the report.
The committee also received a complaint against Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron, who oversaw the former president’s civil case fraud trial that resulted in a $454 million fine earlier this year. That complaint, filed by Trump lawyers, has yet to be reviewed.
Under the commission’s guidelines, the proceedings are confidential unless there is public disapproval or the judge makes them public.
Trump has been very critical of the judges in both cases. In the earlier trial, he was accused of describing Judge Engoron’s law clerk as the girlfriend of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. In the current case, he has drawn attention to Judge Merchan’s daughter, who works as a Democratic political consultant.
In response to a request for Merchan to step aside, which the judge denied, a separate advisory committee on judicial ethics said the contributions did not create an impression of bias or favoritism.
Reports of the contributions come a day after the New York Times revealed that the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had raised an upside-down American flag outside the couple’s home in the wake of the 2020 election.
Alito has said that his wife took this action because a Democratic neighbor had used a highly pejorative insult to describe her to her face.
