Politics
New York appeals court judges in Trump case routinely donated to Democrats, records show
The New York state court that will decide former President Trump’s appeal includes justices who have a history of donating to Democrat campaigns and were elected to lower court judgeships as Democrat candidates before their appointments to the appellate court.
State campaign records show that some of the justices, when they served as judges in the lower courts, donated to Democrat candidates and campaign committees, an apparent violation of the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics rules that prohibit partisan political activities of sitting judges.
The list of candidates from the justices’ history of political donations includes a wide variety of New York elected officials, from state legislature candidates to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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A review of federal and state election contribution records reveals that at least 14 of the 21 justices gave individual donations to Democrat campaigns and committees before their appointment to the court. Fox News could find no evidence of any donations by the justices to the New York state Republican, Conservative or Liberal parties or their candidates.
Marsha Michael, Ellen Gesmer, Jeffrey Oing and Leticia James
The justices serve on the New York State Appellate Court, First Judicial Department, and will eventually hear the anticipated appeal from the former president’s lawyers of his conviction last Thursday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
All but one of the court’s 21 justices were appointed by a New York Democrat governor, either David Patterson, Andrew Cuomo or Kathy Hochul. The sole justice put on the bench by a Republican, New York Gov. George Pataki, is Associate Justice David Friedman, who is the longest-serving justice since his appointment 25 years ago.
Before his elevation to the court, Friedman was the Democrat, Republican and Conservative party candidate for Supreme Court justice in his judgeship election in 2011. In an appellate court’s ruling during Trump’s real estate fraud trial last year, Friedman sided with the former president.
One justice who did not side with Trump is the newest member of the appellate panel, Associate Justice Marsha D. Michael. She was appointed by Hochul last October.
On April 19, three days before opening arguments were scheduled to begin in Trump’s recently completed criminal trial in front of State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, Michael rejected a last-minute bid by Trump’s lawyers to stop the proceedings. Her ruling gave the green light for the trial that eventually convicted Trump to proceed.
In 2014, Michael ran in the Democrat primary for the New York State Assembly in the 79th District in the Bronx. She was endorsed in that race by then-New York City Public Advocate Leticia James, who went on to be elected New York attorney general four years later. Last year, James prosecuted Trump and won her successful $454 million real estate fraud case.
Back when Michael was stumping for the state legislature, James appeared with her on the campaign trail.
On July 11, 2014, Michael answered questions about her candidacy from the nonpartisan good government group Citizens Union.
She was asked if she supported a “merit-based appointment system through creation of a commission for the selection of judges in all of New York’s trial courts.”
The justice did not support the idea that all judges should be chosen on the merits, writing, “I don’t think all courts should solely be merit-based.”
Michael lost the Democrat primary race despite having the backing of the Bronx Democrat organization. She remained on the ballot in the general election as the candidate of the Working Families Party. The WFP is known today for supporting members of the so-called “Squad” in Congress, backing Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others.
Four years after her defeat, Michael ran again as a Democrat candidate for a New York State Supreme Court seat and won in 2018. It was from that position that she was elevated to the Appellate Division eight months ago.
Appellate Court Justice Ellen Gesmer was first elected as a judge in the New York State Civil Court in 2004. In 2011, she won a Supreme Court judgeship as both the Democrat and Republican candidate. Before Gesmer was elected to the bench, records show that she had donated thousands of dollars to Democrats.
Former President Trump arrives at Trump Tower in New York City on May 30, 2024, after being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. (Felipe Ramales for Fox News Digital)
Federal Election Commission records show that Gesmer contributed to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and various Democratic Party committees when she was a lawyer in private practice.
In 1998, she donated a total of $2,000 to Schumer’s election bid, a total of $1,725 to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 New York state Senate race, $1,700 to the New York State Democratic Committee and the Democratic National Committee, and in 2003, she chipped in $250 to support Dean’s presidential campaign.
Appellate Justice Jeffrey K. Oing gave $900 to the New York State Democratic Committee in three payments in 2003, according to FEC records, one year before he was elected to the New York City Civil Court.
The records from the New York State Board of Elections, which detail contributions to state-level races, reveal the extent of political donations made by judges during their election campaigns.
The range of donations includes contributions to Democrat New York state Senate and Assembly candidates, party committees and local Democrat clubhouses, even as some of the judges served on the bench.
The state’s judicial ethics rules state: “Neither a sitting judge nor a candidate for public election to judicial office shall directly or indirectly engage in any political activity” that does not directly involve their own candidacy. The rules prohibit judges from “engaging in any partisan political activity” or “participating in any political campaign.”
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Trump has accused Merchan of being “conflicted” because he donated $15 to President Biden’s 2016 election campaign and $10 to a group called Stop Republicans. In addition, Merchan’s daughter works for a political campaign consulting firm whose clients include many prominent Democrats, including Biden’s campaign.
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct found that Merchan had no conflict of interest but did reportedly give him a warning over his contributions.
In the murky political landscape that can be New York politics, several of the appellate judges were even endorsed by competing political parties in their contests for a seat on the lower courts.
Appellate Justice Troy Webber first won her race for Supreme Court justice in 2002 as both the Democrat and Republican candidate. In 2016, she was on the ballot as the Democrat candidate, according to New York state election records. Justice Barbara Kapnick won in 2001 as the Democrat, Republican and Liberal party candidate. By 2015, she carried the banner for just the Democrats.
Former President Trump headlines a Republican National Committee spring donor retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, on May 4, 2024. (Donald Trump 2024 campaign)
Despite some of the justices’ past Democrat support, Trump has scored some wins before the appellate court in his recent appeals.
Last year, a panel of five of the justices reduced the amount of the bond that was imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron in Trump’s real estate civil fraud trial from $454 million to $175 million.
Friedman temporarily blocked Engoron’s gag order on Trump, and Justice Anil Singh granted a stay that temporarily lifted Engoron’s ruling that barred Trump and his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, from doing business in New York.
Court observers note that there is no evidence that the personal political views of the jurists have influenced their rulings, but critics contend that the appearance of a possible conflict of interest is troubling.
Fox News asked the appellate court for comment but no one has responded.
Fox News’ Courtney De George contributed to this report.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Saturday to pressure him on a cease-fire deal in Gaza, there was someone on the speakerphone: Brett H. McGurk, President Biden’s longtime Mideast negotiator.
It was a vivid example of cooperation between two men representing bitter political rivals whose relationship has been best described as poisonous. Rarely if ever have teams of current and new presidents of different parties worked together at such a high-stakes moment, with the fate of American lives and the future of a devastating war hanging in the balance.
Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden publicly claimed credit for the breakthrough.
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media site even before the deal was formally announced in the Middle East.
At the White House, Mr. Biden told reporters that his administration had worked tirelessly for months to convince the two sides to halt the fighting. He called it “one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced” and gave credit to “an extraordinary team of American diplomats who have worked nonstop for months to get this done.”
As he left the room, a reporter asked Mr. Biden, “Who gets credit for this, Mr. President, you or Trump?” Mr. Biden stopped, turned around and smiled.
“Is that a joke?” he asked.
But despite the tension between the current president and the next one, their representatives in the Middle East described a cooperative working relationship in the weeks since Election Day.
“Brett is in the lead,” Mr. Witkoff said last week at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Florida, describing the working relationship. That description was accurate by all accounts, even if it did not match what Mr. Trump had said moments before in one of several statements describing his negotiators as critical players.
In fact, Mr. Trump’s threat that “all hell” would break loose if no deal was reached before his inauguration on Monday might have helped motivate Hamas’s leadership to make final decisions. But people familiar with the negotiations said the announcement on Wednesday of a deal to temporarily end hostilities in Gaza was the result of months of work by Mr. McGurk in the Middle East, capped off by several weeks of carefully coordinated efforts by Mr. Witkoff.
Mr. Witkoff, 67, a blunt real estate investor from the Bronx, has largely planted himself in Qatar for the negotiations, knowing that whatever Mr. McGurk negotiated, he would have to execute. In fact, the 33 hostages who will be released under the cease-fire deal may not see freedom until Inauguration Day or after. The cease-fire would expire six weeks later, unless Phase 2 of the agreement kicks in.
By design, the goal was to send a unified message that the fighting must end and the hostages held by Hamas must be released. One person familiar with the negotiations, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the discussions, said Mr. McGurk was more involved in hammering out details of the agreement, while Mr. Witkoff’s role was to make clear that Mr. Trump wanted a deal by the time he is inaugurated.
The president-elect has also been setting some early parameters in his dealings with Mr. Netanyahu — who, for all his support of Mr. Trump in the election, was perceived by the Trump camp as dragging his feet on a deal. Mr. Witkoff flew to to Israel from Doha on Saturday — despite the Sabbath — to underscore the message that Mr. Netanyahu had to get on board.
Mr. Witkoff’s work, including the meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, helped Mr. McGurk and the Biden administration to put pressure on both sides during the negotiation, according to the person familiar with the talks.
It was not at all clear that such an arrangement would work in the days immediately after Mr. Trump won a second term.
He and Mr. Biden have barely talked in recent weeks, their already acrimonious relationship weighed down by the Trump team’s determination to clean out the White House career staff and the Biden team issuing last-minute orders to box in the new administration.
In his remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Biden acknowledged some level of cooperation and respect between their aides.
“This deal was developed and negotiated under my administration, but its terms will be implemented for the most part by the next administration,” Mr. Biden told reporters. “In these past few days, we’ve been speaking as one team.”
But he did not give any more credit to Mr. Trump for helping the effort. For his part, the president-elect said he was “thrilled” that the American hostages would be released, but he did not mention Mr. Biden or the work of the current administration.
“We have achieved so much without even being in the White House,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Just imagine all of the wonderful things that will happen when I return to the White House, and my Administration is fully confirmed, so they can secure more Victories for the United States!”
Both leaders left it to staff members to describe the way they had worked together on the Gaza negotiations.
A person familiar with that effort said a close partnership between Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff was part of an “incredibly effective” process by which the Biden administration finalized a deal that the Trump administration would have to oversee.
That cooperation began soon after Mr. Trump won the election and named Mr. Witkoff to be his envoy to the region. Biden administration officials have said they believe the momentum for a deal began before that, when Mr. Biden helped broker a separate agreement to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. That isolated Hamas and helped persuade the group that a cease-fire was in its interests, according to Biden officials.
Politics
Stephen Miller preps House Republicans for Trump's immigration overhaul in closed-door meeting
President-elect Trump’s top aide on immigration and the border spoke with House Republicans during a roughly hour-long meeting Wednesday.
Lawmakers who left the room hailed Stephen Miller, who was tapped to be U.S. Homeland Security adviser in the new Trump administration, as a brilliant policy mind.
Two sources present for the discussions told Fox News Digital Miller talked about the need to scale up the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) workforce, which is noteworthy given Trump’s promise to execute mass deportations when he returns to office.
Miller also discussed ways to cut federal funds going toward sanctuary cities and states, a cash flow that Republicans had previously promised to target if they were to control the levers of power in Washington.
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Trump adviser Stephen Miller addressed a group of House Republicans Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (Getty Images)
The strategy meeting comes as congressional Republicans are preparing for a massive conservative policy overhaul through the budget reconciliation process. By lowering the threshold for passage in the Senate from 60 votes to 51, reconciliation allows the party controlling Congress and the White House to pass broad policy changes — provided they deal with budgetary and other fiscal matters.
The sources told Fox News Digital Miller’s portion of the meeting partly focused on what border and immigration policies could go into a reconciliation package and what kind of funding Congress would need to appropriate.
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The sources said Miller told Republicans the incoming Trump administration understood the president-elect’s border and immigration goals were “probably not going to get a lot” of Democratic votes and that “those more controversial things would need to be in reconciliation.” More bipartisan initiatives could be passed during the regular process, the sources added.
A House GOP lawmaker told Fox News Digital of an understanding that Congress would follow Trump’s lead.
“I think we’re going to see a slew of executive orders early, and that is going to be helpful to separate from what we have to do legislatively,” the lawmaker said.
One source in the room said Miller emphasized the importance of messaging, adding that “nothing matters if we don’t get our message out to the American people.”
President-elect Trump has promised to carry out mass deportations. (Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital Miller discussed “low-hanging fruit” that Trump could tackle by executive order, mentioning “deportation” as a possibility.
“Tax stuff, that’s going to take some time,” Norman said.
Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., declined to go into specifics about the meeting but told Fox News Digital the discussion focused on “illegal immigration and how that’s going to be curbed … to bring commonsense solutions to the program.”
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“I had a couple of questions about the cost to American taxpayers if we don’t repatriate some 12 million illegal aliens who the Biden administration has let into our country,” Alford said.
Miller declined to answer reporters’ questions when he left the room.
He was invited to address the Republican Study Committee led by Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, the House GOP’s largest caucus, which acts as a conservative think tank of sorts for the rest of the House Republican Conference.
House GOP leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., were not in attendance, nor were they expected.
Rep. Mark Alford said he asked about the cost to taxpayers to keep millions of illegal immigrants in the country. (Getty Images)
Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., the group’s previous chairman, said there was “nothing new” said during the meeting, adding it was an opportunity for Trump’s aides to address the House GOP.
Trump and his aides have already paid heavy attention to congressional Republicans.
Several of his incoming White House aides are in regular contact with top GOP lawmakers. Trump personally invited several groups of House Republicans to Mar-a-Lago last weekend.
WASHINGTON — Thanks to the internet and smartphones, children today have instant access to vast amounts of online pornography, much of it graphic, violent and degrading, Texas state attorneys told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
They urged justices to restore the rules of an earlier era, when X-rated theaters and bookstores had an adults-only policy.
Last year, Texas enacted an age-verification law that requires pornographic websites to confirm their users are 18 or older.
Lawyers for 23 other Republican-led states joined in support of Texas, saying they have or plan to adopt similar measures.
The court’s conservative justices signaled they are prepared to uphold these new laws.
They noted that age-verification rules are now common for online gambling and for buying alcohol or tobacco online.
But more importantly, they pointed to the dramatic change in technology and the easy availability of hardcore pornography.
We are “in an entirely different era,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “The technological access to pornography has exploded.”
He said that warrants reconsidering rulings from decades past that invoked the 1st Amendment to strike down anti-pornography measures.
In one such ruling, the court in 2004 said parents and librarians could use filtering software to protect children from pornography.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett said parents have long known that “filtering” software is not effective in protecting children. “Kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones and computers,” she said. “I can say from personal experience … content filtering isn’t working.”
In the past, she said the court had no problem upholding laws that prevent bookstores from selling sexually explicit books or magazine to children or teens.
She questioned why online porn should be treated differently.
Washington attorney Derek Shaffer, who represented the adult entertainment industry that challenged the Texas law on 1st Amendment grounds, argued the Texas law could have a “chilling effect” on adult customers who may be leery of providing personal information needed to verify age and identity.
Texas state solicitor Aaron Nielsen said the new age-verification systems allow customers to confirm their age online without directly contacting a particular website.
“Age verification is simple, safe and common,” he said.
The justices and the attorneys spent most of their time on what free speech standard should apply to such a law.
In the past, the court said anti-pornography laws must be viewed with “strict scrutiny.” Usually, that resulted in narrowing or striking down such laws.
By contrast, the 5th Circuit Court allowed the Texas law to take effect because it was a “rational” means of protecting children.
Several of the justices said they would vote to uphold the Texas law, but they may also agree to send it back to the 5th Circuit Court for a second hearing.
Republican-led states pointed to a growing pornography problem.
“The average child is exposed to internet pornography while still in elementary school,” wrote state attorneys for Ohio and Indiana. “Pornography websites receive more traffic in the U.S. than social media platforms Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, and Pinterest combined.”
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