Trump hush mon­ey judge rejects last-ditch sub­poe­na but weighs motion to recuse

The judge pre­sid­ing over Don­ald Trump‘s hush mon­ey case declined the for­mer president’s bid to sub­poe­na NBCU­ni­ver­sal over a doc­u­men­tary it cre­at­ed about porn star Stormy Daniels but grant­ed con­sid­er­a­tion of Trump’s effort to replace him on the case.
A week­s­long tri­al is approach­ing on April 15 over Trump’s 34-count indict­ment for alleged­ly fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records in New York to hide a hush mon­ey pay­ment to Daniels to cov­er up an alleged years-old affair in the final days of his 2016 cam­paign. Trump accused NBCU­ni­ver­sal of col­lud­ing with Daniels and sought the sub­poe­na for records asso­ci­at­ed with its pro­duc­tion of Stormy, which it released last month on the network’s stream­ing ser­vice, Pea­cock.
In back-to-back move­ment on the court­room dock­et, New York Supreme Court Jus­tice Juan Mer­chan reject­ed Trump’s sub­poe­na effort but lat­er grant­ed the for­mer president’s bid to brief argu­ments on whether his daughter’s role for a pro­gres­sive con­sult­ing firm …