House committee subpoenas company with ties to daughter of judge in Trump hush-money trial

Aug. 28 (UPI) -- The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed the head of a political campaign marketing company that employs the daughter of New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing former President Donald Trump 's hush-money trial.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan , R-Ohio, requested Authentic Campaigns' chief executive officer sit for a deposition and sign a sworn affidavit that the company, which has managed the campaigns for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris , never communicated with Merchan.

Loren Merchan, the judge's daughter, manages paid media campaigns for "candidates like Sens. Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Rep. Beto O'Rourke ," according to her bio.

Jordan's subpoena , issued Wednesday, demands all documents relating to the company's connections with the Biden-Harris campaign, correspondence with Judge Merchan and any documents referring to the indictment of Trump.

"If Authentic Campaigns indeed has no responsive records for the other requests made by the committee on Aug. 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 in the subpoena Wednesday.

CEO Mike Nellis called the subpoena an "abuse of power," saying the company's political work has no influence on Trump's trial and is not involved in Harris' presidential campaign.

"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 Wednesday in a post on X, showing an image of the subpoena.

"These allegations against our company are completely false and purely politically motivated," Nellis added. "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 has worked on campaigns for top Democrats, including Harris and Biden. Trump, who is the Republican nominee for president, has repeatedly cited her political work in efforts to force Judge Merchan to recuse himself from the case. Merchan has rejected three recusal requests, insisting there is no conflict.

"Defendant has provided nothing new for this court to consider," Merchan wrote in his ruling earlier this month. "Counsel has merely repeated arguments that have already been denied by this and higher courts."

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment his former attorney made to an adult film actress. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18.