Tuesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who chairs the House Republican Conference, filed a complaint with the New York State Unified Court System alleging Judge Juan Merchan was secretly selected in contradiction to a legal mandate for the random assigning of judges. Judge Merchan, Stefanik noted, was somehow randomly selected to preside over a previous trial against the Trump Organization, an upcoming trial against former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, and Bragg’s criminal trial against Trump himself.

“If justices were indeed being randomly assigned in the Criminal Term, the probability of two specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is quite low, and the probability of three specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is infinitesimally small,” Stefanik wrote in a letter to state officials. “And yet, we see Acting Justice Merchan on all three cases.”