GOP Rep. Jim Jordan subpoenaed company linked to judge's daughter in Trump hush money trial

CNN
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has subpoenaed a company linked to the daughter of New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, as Republicans continue to allege that Merchan's political work influenced how she handled the hush money trial against former President Donald Trump.

Republicans have targeted the political work of Judge Merchan's daughter, Loren Merchan, who was president of Authentic Campaigns, a firm that provides digital campaign services such as online fundraising, mobile messaging and web design. She works with Democratic candidates, including some of Trump's most vocal opponents.

A biography of Loren Merchan on the company's website states that she has managed paid media campaigns for “candidates such as Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Representative Beto O'Rourke.”

The subpoena, obtained by CNN, was directed at Authentic Campaigns CEO Michael Nellis and demanded that he produce all documents related to the company's ties to the Biden-Harris campaign, all correspondence with Judge Merchan and all documents related to the indictment against Trump.

In the subpoena that followed the request for voluntary production of the documents, Jordan argued that Judge Merchan's “impartiality” in Trump's case was in question because of his daughter's work, and claimed that the documents requested in the subpoena would shed light on whether Trump's prosecution was politically motivated.

In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records after a seven-week trial presided over by Judge Merchan.

When Trump previously used Merchan's daughter as an argument to disqualify the judge from the case, Merchan asked for a recommendation from the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which concluded that “the judge's impartiality cannot reasonably be called into question because of the business and/or political activities of the judge's relative.”

In a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, Nellis called the subpoena “yet another abuse of power aimed at spreading a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory.”

“Let us be clear: these allegations against our company are completely false and purely politically motivated,” Nellis added.

The subpoena sets September 13 as the deadline for submitting documents.