NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump is asking the judge overseeing his criminal case in Manhattan to step aside, citing ties between the judge's family and Democratic causes, Trump's lawyers said in a statement Wednesday.
The motion for recusal, which has not yet been filed publicly, represents the latest effort by Trump's lawyers to move his case away from the judge, Juan M. Merchan of state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
The Trump legal team also recently sought to shift the case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, to federal court. On Tuesday, District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed court papers opposing that effort, and he is expected to oppose the effort to get Merchan to recuse himself.
Bragg's case centers on a hush-money payment to a porn star in the last days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The $130,000 payment, made by Trump's former fixer, bought the silence of the porn star, who was otherwise poised to tell her story of a sexual encounter with Trump.
Trump has denied the accusations against him — that he falsified records to cover up the potential sex scandal — and has lashed out at Bragg and Merchan, noting that both are Democrats.
"President Trump, like all Americans, is entitled under the Constitution to an impartial judge and legal process," Trump's lawyers, Susan R. Necheles and Todd W. Blanche, said in a statement Wednesday announcing the decision to seek Merchan's recusal.
Yet their motion to recuse faces something of an uphill climb: The decision rests in the hands of Merchan, who also presided over the unrelated tax fraud trial last year of Trump's company. The company's lawyers sought Merchan's recusal in that case as well, but he declined to step aside.
The company was convicted in December, and Merchan ordered the maximum punishment, a fine of $1.6 million.