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By Natalie Venegas
Weekend Reporter
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Amid his criminal hush money trial on Tuesday, Donald Trump accidentally insulted Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over his classified documents case, as the former president took aim at Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial.
Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, became the first former president in U.S. history to stand trial in a criminal case last month. Following an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, Trump was indicted in March 2023 on charges of falsifying business records relating to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels by his then-lawyer Michael Cohen during his 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels had alleged she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which he has denied. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and said the case against him is politically motivated.
On Tuesday, while speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Trump decried the trial as he took aim at Merchan, noting "take a look at where he comes from," seemingly referring to Merchan being Colombian born.
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"The judge hates Donald Trump. Take a look at him. Take a look at where he comes from," Trump told reporters.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's spokesperson via email for comment.
However, some have taken to X, formerly Twitter to note that both Merchan and Cannon were born in Colombia and moved to the United States.
X user Mueller She Wrote said, "Judge Aileen Cannon is also Colombian-born."
Meanwhile, Eric Columbus, a congressional lawyer who also served as a Barack Obama administration official, criticized Trump's comments while pointing out both Merchan and Cannon were born in Colombia.
"This is ugly stuff. Judge Juan Merchan comes from Colombia. He moved to the U.S. as a kid. Remarkably, Judge Aileen Cannon was also born in Colombia — but I doubt Trump knows that," Columbus wrote.
Merchan, who was born in Bogotá, Colombia, moved to the United States with his family when he was 6 and grew up in Queens, New York. Merchan began his legal career in 1994 and worked as prosecutor, serving in the New York County District Attorney's before being appointed a family court judge in 2006 by then New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg. He was named an acting state Supreme Court justice in 2009, overseeing felony criminal cases.
Meanwhile, Cannon was also born in Colombia and was raised in Miami, Florida. She worked as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida in the major crimes and appellate divisions. Cannon was then appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida by Trump and assumed office in November 2020.
Cannon is currently overseeing the classified documents case, in which Trump is accused of illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and obstructing attempts by federal officials to retrieve them. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denied any wrongdoing in the case and has said the documents he retained were personal.
However, Cannon has since faced public scrutiny for issuing rulings favoring Trump, including delaying the case's pre-trial schedule in a move that was seen to slow down the case.
Trump's comments on Tuesday come after Merchan imposed a gag order on Trump in March barring him from making public statements about witnesses, including Cohen and Daniels, as well as lawyers and staff in the case and their families. The order excluded Merchan and Bragg, however, it was later expanded to include their families after Trump made blistering attacks toward the judge's daughter, Loren Merchan.
Trump has since been fined $9,000 for breaking the gag order nine separate times earlier this month and was fined another $1,000 on May 6 as the judge warned Trump that future gag order violations could send him to jail.
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