An X account that is believed to belong to New York Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter, Loren, used a photo illustration of Donald Trump behind bars as its profile picture earlier this week. The picture was later changed after she was criticized online for using it.

Loren’s work for a Democratic consulting firm has been a point of contention, prompting Trump’s attorneys to seek the judge’s recusal from the case. Her firm has worked on campaigns for President Joe Biden and lists Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California and Vice President Kamala Harris among its current clients.

Judge Merchan is overseeing the “hush money” case related to allegations of reimbursements for a payment made by Trump’s former lawyer to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He is being charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Ahead of his April 15 trial, Judge Merchan expanded a gag order on the case at the request of prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to include barring the former president from making public comments about the judge’s family. He had previously been barred from commenting on prospective jurors, lawyers in the district attorney’s office, the relatives of court staffers and attorneys on the case, and potential witnesses.

Political activist Laura Loomer posted on X that she was blocked by Loren on X after she exposed the profile picture; Loren later locked the account and changed the picture, but Loomer took multiple screenshots of it and shared them online.

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Al Baker, a court spokesperson, claimed the photo was simply a “manipulation of an account she long ago abandoned.”

However, her consulting firm had linked to the account in question in past social media posts, which can be interpreted as proof of its authenticity. Trump has not shared Loren’s bio photo but did suggest her activism caused a conflict of interest. He also referred to her as a “Rabid Trump Hater” and said she “admitted to having conversations with her father about me.”

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “So, let me get this straight, the Judge’s daughter is allowed to post pictures of her ‘dream’ of putting me in jail … but I am not allowed to talk about the attacks against me, and the Lunatics trying to destroy my life and prevent me from winning the 2024 Presidential Election, which I am dominating?”

He added: “Maybe the Judge is such a hater because his daughter makes money by working to ‘Get Trump’ and when he rules against me over and over again, he is making her company, and her, richer and richer.”

Judge Merchan insists he can be impartial despite family history of supporting Democrats

Juan Merchan also has a history of making donations to Democrat candidates and causes but refuses to recuse himself from the Trump case. FEC filings show that he donated to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, along with a political action committee that works to increase voter turnout for Democrats and a group called Stop Republicans, which is devoted to keeping Republicans and Trump from taking office.

However, he maintains that he can be “fair and impartial” and said that a state court ethics panel determined that his daughter’s work would not affect his impartiality on the Trump case.

Judge Merchan insisted that his daughter’s interests would not be impacted by the proceedings substantially and that Trump “failed to demonstrate that there exists concrete, or even realistic reasons for recusal to be appropriate, much less required.”

Sources for this article include:

HeadlineUSA.com

CBSNews.com