As Donald Trump’s recent criminal trial drew closer, the former president lashed out at a variety of people across the legal system, including likely witnesses in his hush-money-to-a-porn-star case. It led Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the proceedings, to impose a gag order on the Republican to help protect the integrity of the process.
Trump, who has an affinity for going after the family members of his perceived foes, responded by going after the judge’s daughter — publicly and repeatedly.
The GOP candidate’s allies, including House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and Donald Trump Jr., soon followed down the same path. Four months later, the party is still at it. The Hill reported:
The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed the company that employs the daughter of Juan Merchan, the New York judge who is overseeing former President Trump’s hush money trial. The subpoena escalates a brewing battle between the panel’s Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government and the company, Authentic Campaigns, which previously rebuffed lawmakers’ demands to turn over any communications the company had with Merchan, noting they simply don’t exist.
As things stand, Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s far-right and conspiratorial chairman, wants the company’s CEO both to give a deposition and sign an affidavit that Authentic Campaigns was not in communication with Merchan.
To be sure, to know the Ohio Republican is to know how irresponsible he is — I made the case last fall that Jordan is the single worst member of Congress — but even by his standards, these latest antics are tough to defend.
The underlying conspiracy theory is that the judge in the Trump case might have somehow been in league with his daughter and her partisan campaign efforts. It’s a difficult idea to take seriously. As my MSNBC colleague Lisa Rubin explained, “The House Judiciary Committee has been told plainly that the digital strategy firm with which Judge Merchan’s daughter works has not done any work for the Biden or Harris campaigns this cycle and that she herself does not work with any relevant political clients. They’ve also been told about the death threats to her and the firm’s founder. Yet today, they subpoenaed the firm, as if it, as opposed to the committee or Trump himself, has engaged in misconduct.”
What’s more, Authentic Campaigns’ founder, Mike Nellis, has explained to Jordan, in writing, “Authentic had no role, involvement, or influence whatsoever in those judicial proceedings,” Nellis wrote, claiming that his company has had no contracts with Biden for President, Harris for President or the Democratic National Committee since January 1, 2023.
A report in The New Republic went on to note, “Nellis called Trump’s claims that Loren Merchan had raised tens of millions off of Trump’s trial ‘unequivocally false.’ He also lambasted the committee for ‘using valuable time and taxpayer dollars to perpetuate a false right-wing conspiracy theory,’ calling it a ‘disgraceful misuse of power.’”
There’s no reason to believe this Republican crusade will end anytime soon, but it certainly should.
