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.
The letter from Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asks CEO Mike Nellis to sit for a deposition with the company and sign a sworn affidavit that the company never communicated with Merchan.
Nellis had previously mocked Jordan, calling it absurd to suggest that his company would have any dealings with an employee’s parent, while noting that the firm does not perform services for the campaigns of either President Biden or Vice President Harris, and its political work has no connection to the outcome of Trump’s hush money trial.
Jordan nonetheless asked Wednesday for a sworn affidavit that the company combed its records for any relevant communications dealing with Trump’s prosecution.
“If Authentic Campaigns indeed has no responsive records for the other requests made by the Committee on August 1, as you have asserted, the Committee requests a sworn certification under the penalty of perjury that Authentic Campaigns made a reasonable, diligent, and good faith search for responsive documents and was unable to locate any responsive documents,” Jordan wrote.
Nellis shared a copy of the subpoena online Wednesday and called Jordan’s subpoena an intimidation tactic.
“This is yet another abuse of power, aimed at promoting a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory that links our company, Authentic, to Donald Trump’s fraud trial,” Nellis wrote on the social platform X.
“Let us be clear: these allegations against our company are completely false and purely politically motivated. This is a blatant attempt to intimidate us and divert attention from Donald Trump’s conviction. We refuse to be bullied, and we will not allow House Republicans or MAGA extremists to spread lies about our work.”
Merchan’s daughter, Loren, has been a frequent target of Trump’s ire, given her work on campaigns for top Democrats including Harris and Biden. Loren Merchan’s work has repeatedly been raised in efforts to force her father to recuse himself from Trump’s New York case.
Merchan has rejected three recusal requests from Trump, most recently earlier this month after the former president’s legal team suggested Loren Merchan’s work for Harris constituted a new reason for the judge to step aside. The judge has insisted his daughter’s work presents no conflict and said he has consulted the state’s judicial ethics advisory committee in reaching that decision.
“Stated plainly, Defendant’s arguments are nothing more than a repetition of stale and unsubstantiated claims,” Juan Merchan wrote in his ruling.
The former president is barred from making public comments about the family members of Judge Merchan or prosecutors in the New York case, though the judge himself and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) remain fair game.
Jordan has conducted a number of inquiries targeting those prosecuting Trump or otherwise connected to them, including a probe into Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who has filed election interference-related charges against Trump in Georgia.
In May, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, made to an porn actor to keep her quiet ahead of the 2016 election about an alleged affair with Trump. He denies the affair and any wrongdoing related to the payment.
The former president is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18, if Merchan determines the hearing can go forward in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.