Last summer, the state Ethics Commission quietly dismissed charges against the New York judge presiding over Donald J. issued a warning about small donations. .
Judge Juan M. Marchan donated $35 to groups in 2020, including $15 allocated to the Biden campaign and $10 to a group called Stop Republicans.
The state’s judicial ethics rules prohibit political contributions of any kind.
“Judge Marchand noted that the more than year-old charges were dismissed with a caveat in July,” court system spokesman Al Baker said in a statement.
The warning does not include penalties, but it could be considered in future cases considered by the state Judicial Conduct Commission. The letter outlining the warnings was not made public due to committee rules, and Judge Marchan also did not make the letter public.
“The Judicial Conduct Commission has confidentiality rules and cannot comment on private dispositions,” said Robert Thembejian, the commission’s administrator.
The commission’s decision was first reported by Reuters.
In its 2024 annual report, the commission said it found that dozens of New York judges had violated rules against political contributions in recent years. Most of the amounts are small, and much of it appears to be due to a misunderstanding that the rule only applies to state elections, the report said. In fact, judges are prohibited from contributing to any political campaign, including those in federal office.
“Like many illegal acts the committee encounters, making prohibited political contributions is a self-inflicted mistake,” the committee said in its report.
For Judge Machan, the risk of making such a mistake is much higher than for other judges. Judge Machan is the first judge in U.S. history to preside over a criminal trial of a former president.
The donations partially fueled Mr. Trump’s efforts to have Judge Marchand removed from the case before the trial began. Mr. Trump’s lawyers also focused on Judge Marchand’s adult daughter and her work at a Democratic consulting firm.
But Judge Marchand refused to recuse himself, the Court of Appeal judges also refused to intervene, and the case is now nearing its conclusion.
The case centers on hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels claims she had a sexual relationship with Trump but was bought her silence with a $130,000 payment from Trump’s fixer. Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying his business records to conceal payments made to fixer Michael D. Cohen and treating them as routine legal expenses.
Mr. Trump denied the charges against him and lambasted Judge Marchand and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the case, noting that both are Democrats.
