America First Legal, a group founded by Stephen Miller, a former top Trump adviser, has submitted a formal request to the New York State Ethics Commission for the immediate release of Judge Juan Merchan’s financial records from the Unified Court System.
“Under New York Law, judges are required to file annual financial disclosures which are required to be made available for inspection upon request. AFL has filed such a request for Acting Judge Merchan’s disclosures for reporting years 2018 through 2024,” the legal group, which was co-founded by leading Trump advisor Stephen Miller, wrote in a press release. “AFL will release any documents obtained from this request.”
Judge Juan Merchan, a Biden donor whose daughter has raised millions of dollars for left-wing groups, has found himself at the center of political bias allegations surrounding the unprecedented trial. America First Legal has filed several lawsuits and requests for documents targeting Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his staff, and Merchan.
On Thursday, the group filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and a state law complaint with the New York Department of Labor against Bragg, alleging racial and sex discrimination in hiring and recruitment. AFL has previously sued several organizations for discriminatory hiring practices under the New York State Human Rights Law.
“The evidence is that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office uses ‘diversity’ as a proxy for hiring and promotion quotas. The Office’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion web page — listed under ‘About the Office’ alongside only two other pages, ‘Meet Alvin Bragg” and ‘History of the Office’ — demonstrates that Bragg operates a program of racial balancing to build ‘a diverse [sic] workforce that reflects [diverse] communities,’” AFL wrote in a separate press release. The release included screenshots demonstrating hiring quotas for race, gender and sexual orientation that are present within Bragg’s office.
But AFL isn’t just targeting the legal process in New York that convicted former President Trump. AFL is suing the Department of Justice for records related to Bragg’s hiring of Matthew Colangelo, who previously served as the third most senior official in the Biden DOJ and later became a low-level prosecutor in New York. He worked on the Trump prosecution after joining the team as a white-collar crimes specialist.
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“Today, AFL sued the DOJ to compel the immediate release of previously requested records regarding Matthew Colangelo, a key figure in the partisan and politically-motivated prosecution of President Trump in Manhattan,” America First Legal noted in a release.
Beyond the lawsuit, the legal organization has submitted several Freedom of Information Act Requests seeking records of communications related to Colangelo’s recruitment. They are requesting exchanges involving Colangelo and the New York County District Attorney’s Office, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Jay Bratt, David Harbach, and the organization known as “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington” (CREW).
