Three times Elise Stefanik has attacked judges for Trump

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has been polishing her credentials as an attack dog as former President Donald Trump is winnowing down his vice presidential candidate short list.

After once describing the former president as a whack job, Stefanik has since changed her tune. She is one of his most reliable supporters in Congress and has exercised her power to put pressure on judges she believes have shown bias or a conflict of interest in their judicial proceedings involving Trump.

As one of more than half a dozen contenders for the coveted vice presidential nomination, Stefanik has been steadfast in her defense of Trump, who is facing four criminal indictments.

Here are three times Stefanik has filed ethics complaints against judges presiding over or otherwise involved in any of Trump’s trials.

Stefanik calls for Judge Juan Merchan to recuse himself from hush money trial

On Tuesday, Stefanik filed an ethics complaint against Merchan and called for him to step down from the case over accusations that his daughter is using Trump’s indictment as a way for her fundraising agency to make money.

In a letter addressed to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Stefanik said Merchan is facing a conflict of interest because his daughter’s company is profiting off Trump’s indictment, as many of her Authentic Campaigns clients have used Trump’s indictment in their fundraising material. The New York State Unified Court System states that a judge is disqualified from a case if they or a person closely connected to them, “has an interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding.”

“The clients of Judge Merchan’s daughter have raked in nearly $100 million and have used President Trump’s indictment — a case over which her father presides — as fundraising fodder,” Stefanik wrote. “It is common sense that, if these groups make no money, they cannot afford to pay for services provided by individuals such as Ms. Merchan. The more money raised, the more it can be spent on services.”

Stefanik filed her complaint in the sixth week of the trial, days before it is set to wrap up. Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records after he used his fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stay silent about her alleged affair with Trump.

Stefanik accuses Judge Beryl Howel of using her position to ‘exact political revenge’ on Trump

In December 2023, Stefanik called for an investigation into Howell, the U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., who approved and oversaw grand jury testimony regarding Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Though not the judge on the trial, Howell still possesses influence on how the case will sway.

Stefanik pointed to a speech Howell gave at a Women’s White Collar Defense Association gala in November 2023 in which she warned that the country was heading down an “authoritarian” path.

“My D.C. judicial colleagues and I regularly see the impact of big lies at the sentencing of hundreds, hundreds of individuals who have been convicted for offense conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, when they disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol,” Howell said in her speech.

While Howell did not mention Trump’s name, Stefanik accused the judge of suggesting that “reelecting President Trump will lead to fascism in America.”

“Judge Howell’s partisan speech is obviously highly inappropriate election interference by a federal judge that undermines the public’s trust in our courts,” Stefanik said.

On Monday, Stefanik and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to the Office of the Circuit Executive of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding why the investigation into Howell was being stalled.

Stefanik demands Judge Arthur Engoron recuse himself for his display of ‘inappropriate bias’

In November 2023, Stefanik called for Engoron to step down from New York’s civil fraud case accusing Trump of illegally inflating the value of his assets for financial gain.

In her petition, Stefanik started off by citing an incident in a February 2022 hearing, when Engoron pushed back against Trump’s lawyers’ claim that New York Attorney General Letitia James discriminated against their client while she attempted to compel Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump to testify in the civil investigation of the Trump Organization.

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“Last year, Judge Engoron told President Trump’s attorney that the former president is ‘just a bad guy’ who Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James ‘should go after as the chief law enforcement officer of the state,’” Stefanik wrote in her complaint. Stefanik also complained that Engoron “infamously smiled and posed for the cameras” at the start of the trial.

Stefanik’s complaint was filed days after Trump first took the stand in the trial.