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in General Factchecking by Master (5.4k points)
On the Fox News main site it has a headline: "Astonishing amount of money Trump indictment judge donated to Biden in 2020"  https://www.foxnews.com/     (noted, this headline will probably disappear soon as they update the main page.)

Claim by Trump that judge is a Trump hater: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ny-judge-trump-hush-money-case-gave-15-biden-2020-fec-records-indicate

2 Answers

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by Journeyman (2.7k points)
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As this article correctly claims, judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing former President Trump's hush money case did in fact donate $15 to Joe Biden's presidential campaign. He also, according to this article from NBC, donated an additional $20 to two other progressive political action groups during the 2020 cycle. All figures have been verified by the Federal Elections Comission.

Calling $35 an "astonishing" amount of money is a blatant over-exaggeration. Judge Merchan makes over $210,000 a year as a New York state judge; $35 is a tiny, tiny portion of that income. The former President asserting that Merchan is a "Trump hater" is most likely political conjecture meant to fire up his donation and voting base. We can't know for certain exactly why Merchan donated to Biden's campaign, but it does lend some questions as to whether or not Merchan has a conflict of interest in presiding over this case.

Despite nearly 30,000 judges making political donations every cycle, according to that previous NBC news article, Merchan is obviously in a unique situation in that no former president, especially one actually in an election, has been indicted for a crime. However, in this CNN story, Stephen Gillers a New York University legal ethics professor said the trivial amount of donation money would come nowhere close towards a possible recusal of Judge Merchan from this case. 

Exaggerated/ Misleading
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by Apprentice (1.2k points)
While this article has some truth to it, it greatly twists it. Firstly, it does not dispute the claim that Donald Trump made of this judge being a "Trump Hater". However, in an Associated Press article, he is documented as admitting to donating the 15 dollars. This amount of money is insignificant to him and should not impede too much on their case. Just looking at the article alone you can see that the truth was getting bent. The professor who was the show's advisor said that the donations wouldn't do much to effect the proceedings. Yet Fox News still try to turn it into a scandalous story that makes it look like they are out to get Trump. The judge has maintained his confidence in deciding the case. The writer of this article Chris Pandolfo has written many biases articles. Like one where he argues that the supreme court will probably side with Trump on the case of whether he should be on the ballot in colorado or not. It's not that he lies in his articles he just takes facts and twist them in order to support Trump republicanism it seems.

https://www.foxnews.com/person/p/chris-pandolfo

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/judge-merchan-trump-biden-contribution/index.html#:~:text=Judge%20Juan%20Merchan%2C%20the%20judge,Trump's%20opponent%2C%20President%20Joe%20Biden.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-hush-money-juan-manuel-merchan-recusal-manhattan-e6ea9180af83bf47443b752fec2c518c

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/judge-trumps-new-york-case-appears-donated-15-biden-president-2020-rcna78577
Exaggerated/ Misleading

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