By Luc Cohen, Tom Hals
(Reuters) -After Donald Trump lost a last-ditch bid to delay the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president, he lashed out at the New York judge overseeing the case: Justice Juan Merchan.
"Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised," Trump wrote on March 28 on his Truth Social platform. "If the Biased and Conflicted Judge is allowed to stay on this Sham "Case," it will be another sad example of our Country becoming a Banana Republic."
Despite Trump's vitriol and efforts to get Merchan off the case, the judge has approached the proceedings with both concern for Trump's rights as a defendant and presidential candidate, and firmness in the face of what he views as troubling behavior and personal attacks on his family by the former U.S. president.
The veteran judge, who began his career as an assistant district attorney in the same office that is now prosecuting Trump, has already overseen a criminal trial of Trump's family real estate company and is presiding over onetime Trump adviser Steve Bannon's criminal case.
At this trial, Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump, the Republican candidate for the presidency in the Nov. 5 election, has pleaded not guilty and denies any such encounter.
Merchan has emphasized he does not want the trial to get in the way of Trump's ability to campaign or to publicly criticize the case.
But he has held firm on enforcing rules in his courtroom, such as when he said during jury selection on Tuesday that Trump had been uttering something and gesturing in the direction of a prospective juror while she was being questioned just 12 feet (3.7 meters) away from him.
"I won't tolerate that," Merchan said after the prospective juror left the room, raising his voice. "I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear."
The juror was not chosen.
In late March, Merchan granted a request from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office for a gag order restricting Trump's public statements about witnesses, court staff and individual prosecutors. The judge said some of Trump's statements had been threatening or inflammatory.
The judge later expanded the order to cover his relatives and those of Bragg, whose office brought the charges, after Trump disparaged the judge's daughter online.
Trump's lawyers have argued Merchan should be removed from the case because of his daughter's work for a political consulting firm with Democratic clients.Merchan has denied those requests twice.
FROM QUEENS TO THE COURTROOM
The hush money case is the first of four criminal indictments Trump faces to reach trial. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the other cases as well, which are tied to efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his handling of government documents.
The history-making trial is a far cry from Merchan's prior stints on the state's Court of Claims, which hears cases against the state and its agencies, and family court in the Bronx.
The judge was born in Colombia and moved to the United States at age 6, growing up in New York City's borough of Queens - where Trump also spent much of his youth. Merchan graduated from Baruch College in New York City and Hofstra University School of Law on Long Island.
He has been a Manhattan criminal court judge since 2009. Over the last three years, he has overseen several politically charged cases involving Trump and his allies.
Merchan in 2022 presided over a criminal trial of the Trump Organization. The real estate company was convicted by a jury of tax fraud. Merchan later sentenced the company to pay $1.6 million in fines.
He is also overseeing Steve Bannon's case, which is currently scheduled for trial in May. The former Trump campaign and White House adviser has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges related to a nonprofit that raised funds for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump's trial was initially slated to start on March 25, but Merchan delayed it by three weeks when defense lawyers raised concerns about the late production of potential evidence. After finding Trump's arguments meritless, the judge has shown little patience for perceived postponement efforts.
In an April 3 order denying Trump's bid to exclude some evidence, Merchan wrote, "The fact that the Defendant waited until a mere 17 days prior to the scheduled trial date of March 25, 2024, to file the motion, raises real questions about the sincerity and actual purpose of the motion."